


Kill, Smile II

by iamagraveyard



Series: Kill, Smile [2]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Addiction, Anal Sex, Blood, Blow Job, Contract killing, Drug Abuse, Drug Dealer, Drugs, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Smut, Frerard, Gang, Gun Violence, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Killing, M/M, Murder, Murder for Hire, Murderer, Slash, Smut, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-05-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:15:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23865874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamagraveyard/pseuds/iamagraveyard
Summary: After a violent showdown with Mason ends in bloodshed and death, Frank Iero and a badly-wounded Gerard Way continue their life on the run; however, now they’re running from an entire blood-thirsty gang that’s seeking to avenge their leader’s untimely death...
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Series: Kill, Smile [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1693741
Comments: 32
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

It’s just past one o’ clock in the morning and Frank‘s entire body is shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his veins as he drives Gerard’s black pickup truck down the darkened interstate highway. As he anxiously chews on his bottom lip, all he can smell is the strong, metallic scent of blood and all he can hear in his head are the deafening echos of gunshots ringing out, making him feel like he’s going insane. Frank is freaking out—he feels incredibly on-edge and his body literally hasn’t stopped shaking since they’d left the crime scene at Redlight. He’d never been so close to death or witnessed a murder until just several hours ago and he’s in complete shock from the trauma of it all. Nothing feels real to him right now, as if he’s living in a waking nightmare. 

In the backseat of the truck, Gerard is lying with his body outstretched across the beige leather, drifting in and out of consciousness from the amount of pain he’s in and the large amount of blood that he’s lost from the gunshot wound in his left shoulder. Frank has been constantly looking over his shoulder while he drives, obsessively checking that Gerard is still breathing as he lies there. After five hours of driving, they’re finally out of Washington state and now in Idaho where Frank is planning on stopping at the first motel he sees. Back in Washington he’d been able to slow down Gerard’s bleeding with a tourniquet after stopping at a drugstore where he’d purchased some medical supplies.

“Okay, we’re here,” Frank says as he finally pulls the truck into the parking lot of a motel which is located just off the highway. He puts the vehicle in park and turns off the engine. He then carefully climbs over the drink-holder in-between the two front seats, clutching his aching chest and torso and wincing in pain as he does, and kneels down by the backseat where Gerard is lying. 

Gerard’s forehead is damp with perspiration, his complexion is pallid and his breathing is shallow and laboured. The black leather jacket he’s wearing is soaked with blood, as is the black T-shirt he’s wearing underneath it—the metallic smell of it is making Frank’s stomach churn unpleasantly. Gerard hasn’t opened his eyes or responded to Frank’s statement and it’s making the younger man’s heart rate speed up with even more anxiety. 

“Gerard?” Frank says worriedly, stroking the man’s cheek in an attempt to rouse him. Gerard then groans and opens his eyes, causing Frank to let out a shaky breath of relief at seeing that he’s still conscious. “Babe, we’re at a motel in Idaho now. Let’s go check in and get you patched up.”

Gerard groans again, not sure how the fuck he’s even going to stand up with the high level of exhaustion and pain he’s feeling right now. “You go in by yourself and pay for the room—there’s some cash inside my jacket. Come get me after,” Gerard manages to say, his voice sounding extremely weak.

“What?” Frank exclaims, his eyes widening as he looks down at Gerard. “I’m not fucking leaving you here,” he says firmly, wondering if the wounded man is thinking clearly right now.

“Well, you’re gonna have to,” says Gerard, wincing as he feels a sudden sharp twinge of pain in his throbbing shoulder. He’s honestly not sure how much more of this he can take without vomiting or passing out. “The people at the front desk might call an ambulance or something if they notice I’ve been shot, and that’s the last fucking thing we need.”

Frank lets out a shaky breath. “Okay,” he says, nodding. He’s nervous as hell about leaving Gerard alone in the truck even for just a few minutes in the unstable condition he’s in, but he knows he doesn’t really have a choice. He leans over and kisses Gerard softly on the mouth. “I love you so much,” he says earnestly.

“I’ll be fine, Frankie,” Gerard says, noticing how worried Frank looks. “I love you, too.”

Frank finds a wad of cash in Gerard’s inside jacket pocket and when he takes it out he’s absolutely stunned when he sees how much money it is. He’s sure he’s never held this much money in his hands all at once before—there’s got to be about five grand there. He removes a couple hundred dollars from the wad before tucking the rest safely away in Gerard’s pocket, and then he gets out of the truck and makes his way into the motel lobby.

Inside, Frank quickly buys them a cheap room for the night and then he immediately returns to the parking lot to get Gerard, who he carefully helps out of the truck and leads inside, up to the single-bed room on the third floor of the motel. Gerard’s muscular body is extremely weak right now and he’s leaning on Frank, who’s struggling to support the weight of the taller man while his own battered body is aching. They eventually manage to make it safely to their room where Frank carefully lies Gerard down on the bed and sets the bag of medical supplies down next to him. Frank then helps Gerard take off the tourniquet above his wound before helping him take off his jacket and T-shirt. The stretching movement of pulling his left arm out of the sleeves of his clothing causes Gerard a considerable amount of pain in his wounded shoulder, and soon a sudden surge of sticky, deep-red blood begins to pour out from the bullet hole.

“Fuck...” Frank says under his breath, his eyes widening as he stands there, frozen in place, stunned by the profuse bleeding he’s observing. He’s never seen so much blood before in his life...

“Wash your hands, put some gloves on and get the gauze,” Gerard instructs, his voice sounding muffled and strained as he clenches his teeth down hard on a piece of his leather jacket, trying to make the pain more bearable as warm blood spills down into his left armpit, soaking the white motel bedsheets beneath him, turning them murder-red. “I need you to put pressure on it again,” he says, trying to keep his voice even while he’s dealing with probably the most pain he’s ever felt in his life.

Frank immediately rushes to the bathroom and washes his hands before getting the gauze out from the bag of medical supplies he’d bought at the drugstore. He puts on a pair of gloves and then takes a bunch of the gauze and presses it firmly against Gerard’s bleeding wound.

“God-fucking-dammit....” Gerard groans through clenched teeth from the intense pain of the sudden pressure on his wound. He squeezes his eyes shut as he bites down hard on the black leather of his jacket, tasting his own blood in the tough material. 

Frank can’t help but to feel terrible for causing Gerard even more pain but he knows this is necessary in order to stop him from losing too much blood. “I’m so sorry, babe...” Frank says, his heart pounding as he watches dark-red blood seep out from between his glove-covered fingers. 

“Don’t apologize,” Gerard says through gritted teeth. He looks absolutely worn-out and exhausted with beads of sweat forming on his pale forehead.

“I’m hurting you, though...” says Frank, his eyes stinging with hot tears. 

“I’m gonna be in pain regardless, baby; it’s not your fault,” Gerard manages to say, looking up at Frank and seeing his tear-filled eyes. “You’re saving my fucking life right now, just remember that,” he says. 

Frank feels a tear roll down one of his cheeks and it falls onto Gerard’s chest. “I just hate seeing you in pain like this,” he says.

“I’m fine, baby. You’re doing an amazing job,” Gerard assures him.

“Thanks...” says Frank, though he doesn’t believe for a second that Gerard is “fine.”

“Oh, _fuck_...” says Gerard suddenly, sighing frustratedly afterwards.

“What?” Frank asks worriedly, thinking he’s done something wrong.

“I just remembered Trevor’s camera. It has our pictures on it and it’s probably still in his hotel room...”

“Oh, shit...” Frank says, biting his lip anxiously. “Maybe I can go back there and get it. You have the keycard for his room, right?”

“Yeah, I have it, but it’s way too risky to go back there—Mason’s guys are probably just waiting for us to come back so they can waste us,” says Gerard. “Besides, it’s a five hour drive each way and I don’t want you out there by yourself for that long,” he says. It’s a half-truth, though, because the main reason he doesn’t want Frank to go back is that he doesn’t think he’d be able to stand being away from him for that long. Gerard is admittedly feeling really strange after the near-death experience they’d gone through today combined with the trauma and hurt of losing his best friend. He just really needs to not be alone right now.

“What if the cops find the camera first though?” Frank asks worriedly. 

“I’m sure Mason’s guys will have already swept the room by the time the cops even connect Trevor to that hotel. His crew is sure as hell not gonna let the cops get to us first—they’re definitely gonna be seeking revenge.”

The terrifying thought of Mason’s crew finding them lingers a little too long in Frank’s brain and he starts to feel sick to his stomach. “I fucking hate thinking about the fact that even more people are gonna be wanting us dead now,” says Frank. 

“Then don’t think about it,” says Gerard simply, wincing when Frank shifts his hands slightly as he continues to apply firm pressure onto his wound. Everything seems so simple to Gerard right now because he’s not even sure if he’s going to make it through this with the way he’s feeling at this moment. He’s not letting Frank in on that thought, though, because he knows it would absolutely break him to hear it. The only thing Gerard is sure of right now is the fact that he’s in love with Frank—everything else is whatever. There’s no guarantee for anything right now, so in Gerard’s mind there’s no point in worrying about anything.

Frank takes a deep breath and tries to relax, seeing how calm Gerard seems to be even though he’s the one with a gaping, bleeding hole in his shoulder. “Are you doing okay?” he asks, concerned as he looks down at his blood-covered gloves.

Gerard nods reassuringly, wiping perspiration from his forehead with his right hand. “Yeah. It’s not that bad,” he lies. He’s trying to ignore the intense pain and put on a tough face so that Frank won’t be so worried about him. “Wanna check if it’s stopped bleeding now?” he asks.

Frank nods and carefully eases up on the pressure he’s been applying to Gerard’s wound. The gauze in the wound is completely saturated with blood but there’s no new bleeding when Frank takes his hand away. “It stopped,” says Frank.

“Okay, good,” Gerard says. “I’m gonna need you to clean it up for me. Can you do that?” he asks, his heart aching when he sees the persistent look of worry in Frank’s eyes.

“Yeah, of course,” says Frank, nodding without hesitation.

“Okay,” says Gerard. “Can you please grab the saline and the syringe and some more gauze?” he asks. Frank takes the items out of the plastic bag and then Gerard instructs him to fill the syringe with saline and flush out the wound with the cleansing fluid before wiping the blood away from the skin surrounding the wound with saline-moistened gauze. 

“Shit—it’s bleeding again,” Frank says, looking concerned when he sees more deep-red blood oozing out from the hole in Gerard’s left shoulder after he cleans it.

Gerard looks down at his wound. “It’s okay; it’s not as much as before,” he says after observing it. “Now, soak some of the gauze with saline, loosely pack it into the wound and then cover it with a dressing.”

Frank looks down at Gerard with a curious expression on his face. “What about the bullet?” he asks.

“What about it?”

“Shouldn’t I, like...take it out?” 

Gerard can’t help but smile warmly because the look on Frank’s face says that he’s absolutely terrified of the possibility of having to dig around in Gerard’s shoulder for a lodged bullet—the fact that he’s still concerned about it and willing to do it despite his fear is incredibly endearing to Gerard. 

“People live with bullets inside of them all the time, Frankie; the wound will just heal around it,” says Gerard. “It’d do me more harm than good if you were to try to take it out,” he adds.

“For real?” asks Frank, genuinely surprised. He was under the impression that bullets had to be removed in order for the wound to heal—maybe it was just something he’d seen in a movie.

Gerard manages a small laugh at the perplexed look on Frank’s face. “Yeah, for real,” he replies. “It’d get infected for sure if you went digging around in there and that’s really not something I wanna deal with. I’d probably lose a lot more blood, too.”

“Huh,” says Frank thoughtfully. He soon gets to work with dressing the gunshot wound as Gerard walks him through the procedure, seeming to be an expert at this. “Have you done this before?” asks Frank, curious as to where Gerard had learned what he knows about wound care.

“Sort of,” Gerard replies. “Years ago, a friend I was living with got shot in the leg after a bad deal. His girlfriend was a nurse and I used to watch her clean and dress his wound every day. I learned a lot from just watching her.”

“Oh, wow,” Frank says as he covers the wound with a white, absorbent dressing. “Seems like you’ve had so many different experiences in your life...makes me feel like I’ve barely even lived.”

Gerard chuckles. “Well, I _am_ fourteen years older than you, so...it’s kind of expected that I’ve had more life experiences than you have,” he says. He looks down at his patched up shoulder and sees that the dressing looks perfect. “You did a great job. Thank you, Frankie,” he says.

Frank smiles, his heart warming from the praise. “You’re welcome,” he says, pleased with his work as well. “How often does it need to be changed?”

“The wound should be cleansed and the dressing changed twice a day, or whenever it gets saturated with drainage.”

Frank nods. “Okay,” he says, thinking he’ll need to go out and get more supplies in a few days.

Gerard sighs, feeling a strong wave of exhaustion come over him. “Come lay with me now, baby...” he says, reaching his right arm up and pulling at Frank’s T-shirt, feeling needy for his boy’s comforting touch after all of the traumatic shit they’d gone through today. 

Frank removes his soiled gloves, clears the medical supplies off the bed and throws the used gauze and the dressing packaging into the trash. He then carefully climbs over Gerard’s body, wincing from the pain in his ribs as he does, and Gerard is suddenly reminded of Frank’s actions earlier that evening.

“You really shouldn’t have spit in Mason’s face,” says Gerard once Frank has snuggled up close to him with his head on his chest.

“He fucking deserved it though,” Frank says without thinking as his mind flashes back to the absolutely vile things Mason had said to him down in the basement of Redlight.

“It doesn’t matter—I gave you specific instructions to not give him any attitude even if he pisses you off; to not give him a reason to hurt you. And then when we got in there you fucking ignored all of that as if I hadn’t said it to you like ten minutes earlier.”

“I was just so goddamn tired of people treating me like shit and just being expected to take it like a little bitch. My entire life I’ve just let people walk all over me, pretending it doesn’t hurt me. I’m sick of it.”

“You need to learn how to control your fucking emotions. If you hadn’t spit in Mason’s face then maybe he wouldn’t have kicked the shit out of you. He always used to tell me, “feelings get you killed,” and I hate to admit it, but he was fucking right.”

Something about Gerard saying that Mason was “right” about something sparks Frank’s temper and he suddenly sits up in bed, looking down at Gerard as he fumes with anger. “So I’m supposed to just stand there and take it when someone’s calling me a “useless junkie” and telling me they were trying to do the world a favour by having me killed? Is that what you want from me, Gerard? To be some kind of unfeeling fucking robot?”

“Listen: I don’t tell you to do what I say to be a controlling asshole; I tell you to do what I say because I’m trying to protect you. I need to know that I can trust you to trust _me_ , otherwise it’s not safe for either of us.”

“Fuck...” Frank says, shaking his head and looking down at his lap. He feels like his life is just happening to him right now and like he has no control whatsoever over anything that’s going on around him. Before he knows it he’s crying with his face in his hands and Gerard is fighting through the pain of moving his left arm to sit up next to Frank and put his right arm around the younger man’s waist.

Gerard sighs. “I’m sorry, baby...” he says gently, feeling lightheaded now that he’s upright. ”What we went through today was fucked up and the last thing you need right now is me getting on your ass about shit. I wasn’t thinking...”

Frank wipes his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says. “You know you can trust me, Gerard. I just haven’t learned to not let certain things get under my skin, especially when someone’s talking shit about me to my face.”

“I do trust you, Frankie. And that’s totally understandable...you’re basically still a kid—it’s not really fair for me to expect you to have the same mentality as I do.”

Frank looks at Gerard and kisses him gently. “You should lie down, babe; get some rest...” he says against Gerard’s lips.

Gerard carefully lies down and so does Frank, wincing as he does. Gerard looks concerned as he watches Frank trying to get comfortable and he remembers the pain he’d felt for him while watching Mason kick him on the ground.

“Let me see, baby...” says Gerard as he carefully lifts up Frank’s T-shirt, exposing the red and dusky-purple bruised skin over his ribs and chest. “Shit...” Gerard says concernedly as he looks at Frank’s painfully discoloured skin.

“Does it look bad?” Frank asks, not really wanting to look down and see the damage that Mason had caused him.

“Yeah, you have some pretty bad bruises,” says Gerard. “Take a deep breath,” he instructs. Frank inhales deeply without questioning. “Did that give you a sharp pain in your chest or anything?” Gerard asks.

Frank lets out the breath he’d been holding in and shakes his head. “No,” he says.

“Good. You probably don’t have any fractures then,” Gerard says. With his one good arm he helps Frank take his T-shirt off fully and then he scoots his body a bit closer and gently presses his lips against the bruised skin over Frank’s ribs.

Frank’s heart just about melts when he feels Gerard’s lips on his skin, pressing the gentlest kisses against his bruises, making him feel so comforted and loved. He finds it so surreal that this is the same man who’d murdered two men by shooting them in the head just hours earlier... It makes him feel a little uneasy to think about the fact that the man he’s in love with had just committed probably the most evil crime there is, but he just tells himself that Gerard _had_ to kill Mason and his bodyguard in order to protect Frank and himself from being killed instead. _Gerard is a good person who does bad things for good reasons, and that’s just the way it is_ , he thinks to himself.

“Can I lay my head on your chest?” Gerard asks, bringing Frank back to the present moment.

“Yeah, go ahead, it’s fine,” Frank replies. “You’re not gonna break me, babe,” he adds with a little smile.

Frank stretches his arm out underneath Gerard’s head and Gerard moves closer to Frank on the bed and carefully lays his head down on the younger man’s chest, sighing contentedly as he does. 

“You okay?” asks Frank, kissing the top of Gerard’s head.

“Mhm,” Gerard replies, closing his eyes and tilting his head upwards so he can press a soft, sweet kiss against Frank’s neck. His shoulder is absolutely killing him right now, but just being held by Frank and listening to his heartbeat is seeming to be a pleasant and effective distraction from the pain. 

Gerard definitely hasn’t processed the fact that Trevor is dead yet; he just feels completely numb because it’s all too much for him to unpack in his brain right now. He’s sure that all the emotions he’s not feeling right now are going to come crashing in at some point, though, and he’s definitely not looking forward to that. He hopes that Frank is coping okay with everything...

“Are _you_ okay?” asks Gerard, speaking into the crook of Frank’s neck. 

“I don’t know,” Frank replies honestly, staring up at the ceiling and feeling like he’s going to cry again.

“You will be,” Gerard assures him. “Imagine one day when this is all over and we’re hosting a dinner party or something and telling our friends all about the crazy adventures we had when we first met...”

Frank smiles and chuckles and affectionately rubs his cheek gently against Gerard’s hair. His heart is absolutely swelling at the fact that Gerard is thinking about their future like this. “A dinner party? I haven’t even been to one before,” he says dreamily.

Gerard chuckles weakly. “Neither have I,” he admits. “I just imagine it’s something that people with normal lives do,” he says.

Frank kisses the top of Gerard’s head again. “I love you,” he says softly. 

“I love you, too, baby,” says Gerard. “We’re gonna be okay,” he says, trying to assure himself of that fact just as much as Frank.

“Do you think we should stay here for a few nights or keep moving?” asks Frank after a moment of lying in silence with Gerard.

Gerard is nearly asleep now but he manages to reply, “Let’s talk about it in the morning; I can barely even think right now, falling asleep...”

“Okay,” says Frank, realizing how late it is now and how tired Gerard must be. “Night, babe.”

“G’night, Frankie,” says Gerard sleepily.

Before long, Gerard is snoring lightly with his head resting on top of Frank’s steadily rising and falling chest while Frank, on the other hand, is still wide awake and turning over racing, anxious thoughts in his mind. He’s afraid to close his eyes, afraid of whatever comes next...but, most of all, he’s afraid of losing Gerard...


	2. Chapter 2

Frank abruptly startles awake in the dark motel room, covered in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, feeling as though there’s a massive weight on his chest. He’s just woken up from a nightmare in which Mason had killed Gerard and was about to kill him next. He puts his hands up to his face and finds that his cheeks are wet with tears—he must have been crying in his sleep.

Gerard stirs awake at feeling Frank’s body shifting in bed next to him, and he immediately wishes he was still asleep when he’s hit with the intense pain in his wounded left shoulder. He opens his eyes, looks over at Frank and sees that he appears to be wiping tears from his face.

“Frankie? What’s wrong, baby?” asks Gerard concernedly, leaning up on his good arm and looking down at Frank in the dark.

Frank really hadn’t meant to wake Gerard up, knowing he needs all the rest he can get right now, but he has to admit that he’s glad to not be awake and alone right now.

“I had a nightmare,” says Frank, wiping the last of the tears away from his cheeks. “Mason was in it... He killed you, and he was about to kill me, too—that’s when I woke up,” he explains. Fresh tears begin to flow from his eyes as he recalls the terrifying events of the nightmare.

“Baby...” Gerard says gently, leaning down and softly kissing Frank’s forehead.

“I’m so fucking scared of losing you, Gerard...” says Frank, his voice sounding thick from crying.

“I’m here, Frankie...I’m not going anywhere,” Gerard says comfortingly, lying down beside Frank again and pressing his own body up against his.

“I know... That dream just fucked with my head a bit,” Frank says. “I’m sorry I woke you up for something so silly,” he says.

“No, don’t apologize—I don’t find waking up to my boyfriend in tears to be something silly...” says Gerard. “You can wake me up any time you want, even if you just need a hug and a kiss. Okay?”

Frank’s stomach flip-flops pleasantly when he hears Gerard call him his “boyfriend” for the first time. He smiles, though Gerard can’t see it in the dark, and finds the man’s hand underneath the bedsheets, lacing their fingers together.

“Okay. Thanks, babe,” says Frank dreamily, amazed at how sweet Gerard is being towards him even in his wounded state. “How are you feeling?” he asks.

“Let’s just say I could definitely use a painkiller right now...” says Gerard, sighing tiredly as he nuzzles his face against Frank’s shoulder.

“Shit—I think that’s the one thing I forgot to buy at the store. I’ll go pick some up tomorrow. We need some more supplies for your dressing changes anyway.”

“Okay, thank you,” says Gerard, yawning as he closes his eyes again.

“I don’t even know where any stores are around here. I could probably ask the person at the front desk though. Do you think they have a map of the area?”

“Frankie...” Gerard says sleepily, halting Frank’s out-loud train of thought. “Stop thinking, baby. Try and go back to sleep.”

Frank sighs deeply, knowing he’s getting ahead of himself again, and closes his eyes, trying to quiet his racing thoughts.

* 

Morning comes after what feels like only minutes passing to Frank as he wakes from a restless sleep. He immediately turns towards Gerard and checks that he’s still breathing, instantly feeling calmer when he sees the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest. Frank decides he’s gonna go out and find a drugstore where he can grab some more medical supplies while Gerard continues to get some more much-needed rest.

Frank gets out of bed and puts on the same clothes he’d worn yesterday, deciding at that point that he’s going to buy both himself and Gerard some new, clean clothes to wear as well. He writes a note on the motel notepad and leaves it on Gerard’s pillow in case he wakes up wondering where he is—Frank knows firsthand how unsettling that can be.

Soon, Frank takes the elevator down to the motel lobby, gets directions to the nearest store from the person at the front desk and then gets into the truck and makes his way there. Being out on his own without Gerard feels strange to him—he hasn’t done anything by himself since they’d met two weeks earlier and the independence feels oddly foreign. Once he’s at the store, Frank’s first order of business is to pick up some extra-strength painkillers before he forgets, and after that he fills the grocery basket with more gauze, saline and dressings for Gerard’s wound care. 

Frank then makes his way to the clothing section in the store and throws a couple packs of plain black T-shirts into the basket. He’s not sure what size jeans Gerard wears so he picks out a couple pairs of medium black sweatpants and calls it a day. At least they won’t have to wear the same dirty, blood-stained clothes every day now, and he’s sure Gerard will appreciate that. Frank also picks up some fresh fruits and vegetables which will provide Gerard’s body with the proper nutrients and energy to help heal his wound.

Back at the motel, Gerard is slowly waking up with a sick feeling in his stomach and more pain in his shoulder than he’d ever imagined was possible. He’d been hoping he would feel a little bit better today but instead he feels a thousand times worse than he had yesterday, and it’s definitely worrying him. He knows he needs to rehydrate himself but he doesn’t think he can stomach swallowing anything at all right now with the way he’s feeling. If the circumstances were different he’d definitely be checking himself into a hospital immediately, but unfortunately that’s not possible unless he‘s willing to live in a maximum-security prison for the rest of his life. Gerard turns his head and reads the note Frank had left on his pillow: 

_Good morning <3  
Just went out to get some more supplies.  
I’ll be back soon. Love you...  
xo Frankie._

Gerard appreciates his boyfriend’s note but he can’t even smile or fucking feel anything except for sick right now. Wanting to avoid vomiting all over the motel bedsheets, he forces himself to sit at the edge of the bed where he stays for a moment, wondering if he should even risk standing up with the extreme lightheadedness he’s feeling. Eventually he decides to just push through the unpleasantness. He stumbles into the bathroom where he immediately keels over and vomits a small amount of yellow bile into the toilet bowl, dry-heaving unpleasantly several more times after that until his stomach finally settles down. He then collapses onto the cold, tiled bathroom floor with his back slumped against the wall. The exhaustion he feels is telling him he should probably try to drink some water but he honestly can’t even force himself to do that—he just knows it’s going to come right back up. 

At this point, Gerard is legitimately scared for his life. He‘s only taken one tiny piss since they’d left the hotel in Bellingham and he doesn’t even feel the need to go right now, which tells him that his body is severely dehydrated and that he’s likely at risk for kidney failure at this point from the amount of blood he’s lost. He needs medical attention like he needs air, but to him it’s not worth his freedom—he’d honestly rather die alone right now than go back to prison, as sad as that may be.

After a while of sitting on the bathroom floor, Gerard’s not feeling quite as queasy anymore but he’s still in excruciating pain and feeling extremely fatigued. He can’t wait for Frank to return with some painkillers because he wants to take a fucking handful of them and just go back to sleep. He looks down at the dressing on his left shoulder and sees that there’s a shadow of blood underneath it, indicating that it’s nearly saturated with sanguineous drainage. He’s really not looking forward to having it changed this morning because he’s anticipating it hurting like a bitch, but he knows that it has to be done. 

Gerard suddenly finds himself thinking about the time when he and Trevor had been involved in a gang fight on their prison block in the second year of Gerard’s sentence. Gerard had gotten stabbed in his side by the makeshift knife of an inmate who was in the opposing gang, and had spent a couple of weeks going back and forth to the infirmary for dressing changes and antibiotic medications after the wound had gotten infected. The way his shoulder is feeling right now is almost exactly how that wound infection had felt years ago—he could never forget that pain, though that wound was smaller than the one he has right now. Suddenly feeling sad after thinking about Trevor, Gerard crawls back to the bed, not trusting himself to walk back there without collapsing. Once there, he gets underneath the bedsheets and lays his head down on the pillow, passing out almost immediately. 

Frank soon returns to the room from his shopping trip carrying a few plastic bags full of the items he’d bought at the store. He sets the bags down on the floor and immediately heads over to the bed to check on Gerard. He finds his boyfriend lying half-awake in bed looking clammy and unwell with a complexion that looks even more pale than it had looked yesterday. Frank sits down on the edge of the bed and pushes Gerard’s hair upwards, off of his forehead, causing the wounded man to open his eyes and look up at Frank’s concerned expression with a dazed and empty look in his hazel orbs. 

“Hey, how’re you feeling, babe?” Frank asks, his concern growing when he notices how hot Gerard’s forehead feels against his hand. 

“Shitty,” Gerard replies, too exhausted to give more than a one-word response. 

“I got you some painkillers,” says Frank. “Wanna take some now?”

Gerard groans at the thought of swallowing anything right now. “No...I’ll take some later,” he says.

“You sure? You might wanna take some before I change your dressing.”

“Later,” Gerard says firmly, closing his eyes and sounding slightly irritated. He immediately regrets snapping at Frank but he’s too exhausted to apologize.

Frank is quiet for a moment, trying not to take Gerard’s irritability personally. He can only imagine how shitty he’s feeling right now. “I got some fresh fruits and veggies and stuff, and I got us some clothes to change into,” says Frank, hoping that hearing this might put Gerard in a better mood.

“Thanks, baby...that was sweet of you,” Gerard says, opening his eyes again and trying to sound gentler. He doesn’t have the heart to tell Frank that there’s absolutely no way he’s gonna be able to eat anything while he’s feeling this way. 

Frank smiles a bit and then looks down at Gerard’s bare upper body, noticing the dried blood on the left side of his chest and torso. He realizes that Gerard probably won’t be able to take a shower for a while because of the dressing on his shoulder which has to be kept dry, and he thinks it might help Gerard feel better if he got freshened up a little bit. 

“You’ve got dried blood on you still. Do you want me to give you a sponge bath? I think it might help you feel better,” says Frank.

“Sure,” says Gerard resignedly. He’s doubtful that it will make him feel any better and he honestly just wants to sleep, but he wants Frank to feel like he’s helping in some way—he can tell that the kid is longing to feel useful and appreciated right now.

Frank goes into the bathroom, wets a washcloth with warm water and soap in the sink and then grabs a dry towel before returning to the bed. As he wipes Gerard’s face, Gerard is pleasantly surprised that it actually feels quite soothing having Frank provide care for him like this. Frank notices that Gerard is breathing more rapidly than usual and he figures it’s just from the amount of pain he’s in. He really wishes Gerard would just take some painkillers to make himself more comfortable. 

After cleaning and drying Gerard’s face and upper body, Frank returns to the bathroom, rinses out the cloth and applies more soap to it before going back over to the bed. Next, he cleans and dries Gerard’s arms and underarms—being extra careful with the left side—before gently scrubbing the dried blood off of his torso. Gerard is feeling incredibly relaxed by Frank’s gentle scrubbing, and he finds the coolness of the room air against his moist skin refreshing—he almost forgets all about the pain while he’s lying there being bathed.

After cleaning the old blood away from Gerard’s skin and then drying the area, Frank returns to the bathroom for a third time to rinse out the washcloth and re-apply soap to it before going back to Gerard. Frank sets the damp washcloth down on Gerard’s stomach while he pulls the bedsheets down so he can undo the button and pull down the zipper on Gerard’s jeans. Gerard lifts his ass up, allowing Frank to pull down both his jeans and underwear at the same time, exposing his large cock and making Frank blush a little bit at the sight of it. 

Frank takes the warm washcloth and wipes down both of Gerard’s legs before drying them and then placing the washcloth on his cock. He gently cleans the head of Gerard’s cock before wiping down the shaft and around his shaved pubic area, and then he carefully wipes his balls, being sure to get underneath them as well. Gerard lets out a soft, pleasant groan at Frank’s gentle touch, enjoying how good and relaxed he’s making him feel. Frank blushes some more at Gerard’s soft, satisfied groan and smiles down at him before getting off the bed to rinse out the washcloth one final time, wincing as he does from a twinge he feels in his ribs from getting up too quickly. Frank soon finishes washing Gerard’s body and then lies down next to him in bed, resting his hand on his boyfriend’s firm chest. 

Gerard thanks Frank for the sponge bath and then he’s asleep again in no time. Frank lets out a sigh. He can’t help feeling overwhelmed; can’t help thinking about everything he’d seen yesterday. He keeps getting flashbacks of images and feelings from the blood-filled scene at Redlight: the feeling of sheer helplessness he’d experienced as Mason jammed the barrel of his gun into Gerard’s neck, seconds away from pulling the trigger and ending his life; the deafening blast of Gerard shooting Mason in the head and seeing the drug-lord’s lifeless body fall to the floor, oozing a sticky pool of crimson blood from the bullet hole; Gerard being forced to point a gun right at him and the sheer terror he’d felt when he’d realized that he could be taking his last breath...

Frank shudders at the last image that splashes across the canvas of his mind, recalling the coldness he’d felt throughout his body as he stared down the barrel of the gun that was held by Gerard, knowing in his heart that the man would have never pulled the trigger but still feeling a twinge of doubt in his gut and immediately feeling incredibly guilty about it. Frank sighs frustratedly again, wishing he could just expunge all of these traumatic images and haunting sounds from his head. He just wants it all to stop. He’s worried sick about Gerard; the man looks like he’s in incredibly poor condition and Frank doesn’t know what the fuck to do about it, especially when he can tell that at times Gerard tries to mask how unwell he really feels. Every time Frank falls asleep or leaves the room he’s scared he’s going to find Gerard dead when he wakes up or comes back and the constant fear is absolutely exhausting him emotionally. 

Frank is in desperate need of a distraction right now and Gerard is basically emotionally unavailable—not that it’s his fault, though. Besides, Frank doesn’t even want to unload any of his thoughts and feelings onto Gerard right now with everything he’s going through with being wounded and in pain. Frank just wants to cry from how much it hurts seeing Gerard in so much pain and there being absolutely nothing he can do about it. He becomes increasingly restless and he inevitably thinks about using again...about being able to just lie in bed and forget about all of the shit that’s happening to him for just a few hours of sedated oblivion...

After a while of going back and forth in his mind, debating with himself, Frank jumps out of bed, grabs some cash out of Gerard’s leather jacket that’s lying on the floor, shoves his feet into his shoes and heads out the door. Before he knows it he’s hopping into Gerard’s truck and driving to anywhere he thinks he might be able to buy some pills—but, honestly, he’ll take whatever he can get right now. In some way he justifies his search for opiates by telling himself that if he manages to buy some pills then at least Gerard can take some, too, to help the pain in his shoulder which probably won’t be eased very much by the over-the-counter painkillers he’d bought for him today.

Frank’s not even thinking about the consequences of relapsing right now—he doesn’t give a fuck about them and he’s not running from them. His mind is racing as he drives and he doesn’t even have a clue where he’s going; he’s just driving, desperate to get his hands on the pills that will numb him out and make him forget. It feels so logical to him to get fucked up, to stain his sobriety—it’s what he’s used to doing when real life becomes too overwhelming for him to handle...

Somehow Frank always manages to obtain the drugs he needs in whatever city he ends up in—he guesses it just comes with being accustomed to knowing what types of people to look for, and knowing where to find them. He’s fucked up by the time he gets back to the motel, knowing it was extremely unsafe and irresponsible of him to drive stoned but not really caring. Gerard is still asleep when he gets in and he’s not surprised. He collapses down onto the bed next to his boyfriend’s body and puts his arm over him, tears streaming down his face as he lies there with his head swimming and his face flushing pleasantly.

The way that this moment feels like both the best and worst he’s ever felt is hitting him like a ton of bricks; he feels like he’s both ascending and suffocating at the same time and it’s extremely unnerving. As Frank waits to slip into comfortable unconsciousness, he finds himself thinking of his childhood; memories of feeling carefree, yearning for the way things were once upon a time...

* 

Gerard wakes up early the next morning with his body shaking violently with rigors. He’s covered in a cold sweat, feeling sick to his stomach and breathing rapidly. The pain in his shoulder is nearly unbearable now and he almost wishes he would just lose consciousness to escape the excruciating pain. 

“I really think we should get you to a hospital, babe...” Frank says worriedly, his brain still feelingly fuzzy from his drug binge the day before despite being awake for a few hours now. He’s pressing a damp, cool washcloth against Gerard’s forehead to try and bring down his fever and stop his body from shivering so much.

“That’s still not a fucking option,” Gerard manages to say, closing his eyes.

“Well, if we do nothing then you’re gonna die, and I’m sure as hell not letting that happen,” Frank says frantically. He’s so fucking angry that he can’t just take Gerard to a hospital. He understands the reasoning behind it, but it still frustrates him to no end not being able to get his boyfriend the medical attention that he so desperately needs.

“My shoulder’s infected—badly. It’s probably gotten into my bloodstream which is why I’m feeling so sick,” Gerard begins, watching Frank’s eyes widen slightly at hearing this information. “You’re right that I’ll die if we don’t do something—which is why I need you to get me some antibiotics,” he says.

Frank’s brow furrows and his eyes fill with tears. “Where the fuck am I gonna get antibiotics from?” he asks distraughtly, at a complete loss for how they’re going to solve this problem.

Gerard bites his lower lip and groans, feeling yet another a sharp, stabbing pain go through his left shoulder. He opens his eyes and looks at Frank before he speaks:

“You’re gonna have to steal them.”


	3. Chapter 3

Frank is sitting on the edge of the bed, still processing what Gerard has just said to him: he’s going to have to _steal_ antibiotics from somewhere in order to save Gerard’s life. Frank has stolen things from places like corner stores and malls before but he’s never stolen anything from a medical facility. His heart is pounding with anxiety because even though he has no idea how he’s going to pull this off, succeeding is the only way that he’s going to be able to save Gerard’s life. 

“So...should I go to a clinic or a hospital?” asks Frank, unsure of how to proceed with planning this heist. He feels completely clueless.

Gerard is becoming restless as he lies in bed, nearly writhing from the amount of pain he feels in his wounded left shoulder, and he’s finding it harder and harder to form words with how rapid his breathing rate has become. “Hospital—need more than just antibiotics,” says Gerard breathlessly. “Get a pen and paper,” he instructs.

Frank’s eyes widen, wondering what medical supplies Gerard is going to ask him to get and hoping he’ll be able to locate everything. He still has no fucking clue how he’s even going to pull this off, but there’s no time to doubt himself. He quickly gets up from the bed and grabs the notepad from off of the desk before heading back over to the bed and sitting down on the edge of it again. He lets out a shaky breath before saying, “Okay. I’m ready.”

Gerard closes his eyes, gearing up to force himself to expend what little energy he has left on speaking. “I’m gonna need IV antibiotics for at least a couple of days. I need you to get four to six bags of IV vancomycin—they’ll be kept in a medication fridge which will probably be near the main nurses’ station in the emergency room,” Gerard begins. “And I’ll also need some oral vancomycin pills—just grab as many of them as you can find.”

Frank is completely stunned at hearing the items on the list so far. “How the fuck am I just gonna grab six bags of IV antibiotics out of the fridge and walk out of there?” he asks exasperatedly.

“Frankie,” Gerard says firmly, opening his heavy eyes and looking at Frank. “I know it’s not easy, but I’m gonna need you to figure some of this shit out for yourself, okay?” he says, wincing and letting his eyes slip closed again as he feels a dizzy spell come over him.

“Okay,” Frank says, letting out another shaky breath as his eyes well up with tears yet again. He doesn’t feel able to handle all the pressure that’s being put on him right now; the rate at which Gerard appears to be deteriorating is making him feel even more stressed and worried.

“I know you can do this, baby,” Gerard says, opening his eyes again for a moment and wishing he had the ability to provide Frank with more guidance right now. He feels like he’s fading fast and just wants to get this list out so that Frank can be on his way. He comfortingly rests one of his hands on Frank’s knee and continues. “You’re gonna need an IV start kit, a few 5mL syringes pre-filled with saline and three 20 gauge IV needles, just in case it takes you a few tries to get one in.”

Frank bites his lip to stop himself from asking Gerard how the fuck he’s going to put an IV needle into him when he’s never done anything like that before in his life, deciding that he’ll just worry about that when the time comes. He still has silent tears streaming down his face from how overwhelmed and anxious he’s feeling and he wipes his eyes and cheeks with the back of his hand before writing the next items down on the list.

“Finally, you need to get two one-litre bags of normal saline, one set of IV fluid tubing with ports, and one secondary IV tubing set,” says Gerard. “All the packaging will be labelled, so just read the labels if you’re not sure what to grab.” 

Frank frantically finishes writing everything down on the list, silently wondering how many years in prison stealing from a hospital would land him if he were to get caught...

“You got it all?” asks Gerard, opening his eyes.

“Yeah,” Frank says, nodding and trying to look more confident than he feels right now.

“Don’t panic if you can’t find something; just do your best,” says Gerard weakly, still breathing rapidly and finding it nearly impossible to keep his eyes open. 

Frank nods again, his heart hurting when Gerard winces and groans from the intense pain he feels when he slightly shifts his position in bed. He thinks about the pills he’d bought yesterday...about how much they would help Gerard right now... He stands up for a moment and pulls a small bag full of several light-blue pills out of his back pocket.

“I got these pills yesterday...” Frank says, holding up the bag for Gerard to see. “Thought you might wanna take one to help with the pain...”

Gerard opens his eyes and he looks up at Frank. “What kinda pills are they?” he asks.

“Uh...morphine,” Frank replies, swallowing audibly, thinking that maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

Gerard sighs, not sure if he even wants to know the answer to the question he’s about to ask. “Did you take any?”

Frank slightly shifts around a little where he’s sitting. “Yeah, yesterday...” he admits quietly, avoiding eye contact with Gerard. 

Gerard’s heart sinks, feeling heavy with disappointment and worry at the realization that Frank has relapsed into his drug abuse again. “You can fucking keep ‘em—I’m not taking that shit,” he says coldly.

Frank’s heart is pounding with even more anxiety; he can tell that Gerard is pissed at him and he knows he’s fucked up big-time by relapsing. “What about your shoulder, though? You seem really uncomfortable from the pain,” says Frank.

“What did I _just_ fucking say, Frank?” says Gerard, feeling himself getting choked up from the intense emotions he’s feeling. “Conversation’s over,” he says. Gerard is feeling extremely worried and unsure—the one person he’s supposed to be able to count on to take care of him right now has fallen back into his old self-destructive habits and it’s extremely frustrating to him. He just wants Frank to be healthy; he doesn’t want to live with the constant worry that one day his boyfriend is going to accidentally overdose on pills.

Frank feels completely lost right now and extremely guilty for disappointing Gerard and almost making him cry on top of everything else he’s going through right now. “Gerard...I’m so sorry,” Frank says sincerely, placing both his hands on top of the hand Gerard is resting on his knee.

“You can save that shit,” says Gerard dismissively. “Just fucking leave,” he adds, making Frank’s heart sink. Gerard knows firsthand that getting clean is one of the hardest things to do, but goddamn, he can’t help feeling angry at Frank for not just talking to him about how he’s been feeling if he’s been struggling with things.

“I’m not leaving here without knowing that we’re okay,” says Frank firmly with tears streaming down his face again. He can’t help but to think about how this could be the last time they see each other, and about how much he would regret it if their last moments together were spent fighting.

Gerard sighs, feeling his exhaustion and pain level increasing. “Goddammit, Frankie...” he says, weakly squeezing Frank’s knee. “I fucking love you so much, baby,” he says, barely able to keep his eyes open now. He feels incredibly guilty for being so harsh with Frank a moment ago, especially considering everything they’d gone through yesterday. The kid hasn’t even gotten proper treatment or therapy for his addiction, so to get angry with him for relapsing is really unfair when Gerard thinks about it.

Frank wipes his eyes with his hands, feeling a sudden wave of relief wash over him, and then he carefully lays his head down on Gerard’s chest, holding him close. “I love you, too,” he says softly. “And I’m so sorry...”

“Shh, sweetheart...I’m the one who needs to apologize,” says Gerard, his speech coming out slurred as his eyes slip closed yet again. “I was a fucking asshole to you just now and that’s not okay—feeling shitty is no excuse,” he says.

“It’s fine, babe,” says Frank, just glad that they’re okay now. “I should go...” he says after a minute or so, reluctantly lifting himself off of Gerard before pressing a soft kiss against his lips.

“Okay,” says Gerard, not wanting Frank to go but knowing they can’t afford to lose any more time. “Stay safe, baby boy,” he says weakly as Frank gets his shoes on. He forces his eyes open and they sting with hot tears; he hates to see Frank leave.

Frank smiles sadly and he goes back over to Gerard to give him one last kiss on the forehead before he heads out. “Love you,” he says.

“Love you,” says Gerard.

*

Frank is nearly hyperventilating as he sits alone in the truck in the parking lot of the emergency room entrance of Benewah Community Hospital. He’s so anxious that he feels like he might throw up and his palms are sweating, causing the ink on the list he’s holding in his hands to bleed. Before arriving here at the hospital he’d stopped at a department store where he’d bought a teal scrub set which he’d changed into when he’d gotten back to the truck. He figures the best chance he has of not getting caught is blending in with the staff nurses in the emergency room as best as he can. At the store he’d also bought a prepaid phone so that when he gets back to the motel he can do an internet search for how to insert an IV among other skilled tasks he’s going to have to learn how to do in a very short amount of time.

Having memorized the list of things he has to steal, Frank folds it in half and tucks into the front pocket of his scrub top. He then tucks a folded up plastic bag from the store he’d been to earlier into the side pocket of his scrub pants so he can use it to put the stolen items into once he’s inside. The level of anxiety Frank feels right now is unparalleled to anything he’s ever experienced before—he’s about to commit theft in a fucking hospital emergency room, taking valuable medications and supplies away from sick patients who need them. The implications of it all makes Frank feel sick to his stomach, but the thought of Gerard dying if he doesn’t come through with these items makes him feel even worse.

Frank takes a deep breath and looks at himself in the rear view mirror, smoothing his hair and practicing his ‘normie law-abiding citizen’ smile before shaking his head at himself and getting out of the truck. As he walks towards the emergency room entrance door he’s methodically focusing on his breathing and recalling the list of items in his head, not wanting to have to pull the list out while he’s inside. He walks in and is immediately met with the sour smell of sterility mixed in with sickness, and the steady sound of nurses bustling around the ward and patients coughing in the waiting room. Frank looks around and sees the waiting patients looking distraught and uncomfortable as they anticipate being called into the assessment and treatment areas, and he feels a pang of guilt in his chest at the fact that he’s about to steal supplies and medications that are meant to treat them.

Frank ignores his feelings of guilt and tries to look confident as he walks purposefully through the waiting room, his eyes scanning around trying to locate the main nurses’ station where he’ll find the area where the medications are kept—the most important thing he’s after right now. He walks a little further and to his right he sees an open doorway which leads to an area with a large circular desk in the middle of it that has several computers around it where staff members in scrubs and doctors in white coats are looking at lab reports and medical imaging on the screens. Judging by the busyness of the area and the large desk in the middle where staff members are gathered, Frank figures that this must be the main nurses’ station. 

He takes a deep breath and walks through the doorway, trying not to look too obvious as his eyes dart around the room, looking for some type of fridge. Frank stands at the entrance of the room for a moment, observing his surroundings. Along the edges of the room there are patient assessment areas which are enclosed by curtains, some of which are drawn closed and some which are not.

“Hey, kid—you look lost. You lookin’ for something?” 

Frank looks to his right and sees a friendly-looking nurse who looks to be in her fifties with colourful stickers on her name tag, which reads ‘Cheryl,’ smiling at him and expectantly waiting for a response.

Frank is lost for words for a moment—he hadn’t anticipated anyone asking him questions and he definitely hadn’t thought about how he would respond to any if asked. He tries to act calm and like his heart isn’t feeling like it’s ready to jump out of his chest and run away as he replies. 

“Hi,” Frank says with what he hopes is a friendly smile and not just an uncomfortable-looking grimace. “I’m looking for IV vancomycin...” he says, hoping the fact that he knows the name of the medication will make him seem more like a legit nurse. 

“Oh—that’s kept in the fridge, which is right over here,” says Cheryl without hesitation as she begins to walk.

Frank is a little shocked when the nurse leads him right over to the medication fridge which is only several steps to the right of where they’re standing. “Thank you,” he says.

“Any time—I know how crazy it can get when you’re new and trying to find where things are kept,” Cheryl says with a chuckle. 

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Frank says, nodding with a smile. “Thanks again,” he adds, hoping that Cheryl will take that as an end to their interaction.

“Is it your first day? Haven’t seen you before,” Cheryl says curiously, much to Frank’s annoyance just as he’s about to open the medication fridge.

“Uh, yeah...it is. I just—“ Frank begins, but he’s suddenly cut off by another nurse calling out to Cheryl that she’s needed for a stat ECG.

Frank is feeling relieved for the interruption as he finally opens the fridge. Luckily everything in there is in alphabetical order and he finds four 250mL bags of vancomycin on the bottom shelf of the fridge. He takes the plastic bag out of the pocket of his scrub pants and puts all four of the cold bags of antibiotics into it. When he shuts the fridge he quickly glances around and sees that absolutely no one is paying any attention to him, which tells him that he’s effectively blending in with the staff in the busy emergency room. 

This realization makes Frank feel much less nervous as he scans the shelves of oral medications beside the fridge. Once again organized in alphabetical order, Frank quickly pulls out a small bin on the shelf which is full of packaged burgundy vancomycin capsules. He takes a handful of them and tosses them into the plastic bag, quickly glancing around to make sure no one is watching before he grabs another handful and tosses them in, leaving only a few pills left in the bin.

Now that he has all of the antibiotics Gerard had asked for, his next task is to find the supply room where he’ll hopefully find all of the other items that are on the list. Frank confidently makes his way through to the other side of the busy nurses’ station, his eyes surreptitiously scanning the area for some sort of supply shelf. It’s not long before he finds a small cubby which is lined with shelves of supplies on each of its three walls. 

The amount of supplies on the shelves is overwhelming to Frank and the fact that he has no visual idea of what he’s looking for doesn’t help at all. The only items from the list that he recognizes right away are the bags of IV fluids. He looks through the bags in the section until he finds the one litre bags that say “0.9% sodium chloride” on them, and then puts two of them into the plastic bag he’s holding, which is now getting pretty heavy as there’s three litres of fluid in there. He finds the packages of IV fluid tubing conveniently located on the shelf right above the one with the IV fluids, finds the ones he needs and then throws them into the plastic bag.

Frank is sure he’ll find the IV start kits, IV needles and pre-filled saline syringes near the same section he’s been looking in, and he’s right—it doesn’t take him long to find the last of the items he’s looking for and add them to the bag. Frank mentally goes through the list in his head, making sure that he’s gotten everything before he goes to leave the emergency room. 

As he walks out the door and heads towards the truck with the bag full of stolen medications and medical supplies, it almost seems like it had been too easy for him to steal everything he needed without getting caught. He can’t help but to constantly check the rear view mirror while he drives back to the motel, just in case someone had called the police when he’d left or something. He knows it’s unlikely but he can’t help the feeling of paranoia he has after having committed a crime. When he finally gets back to the motel he quickly takes the elevator up to the third floor with the bag full of stolen goods. He lets himself into their room and immediately drops the bag he’s holding before locking the door and rushing over to the bed to check on Gerard.

Gerard is aware that Frank has come back into the room but he’s feeling incredibly disoriented and he can tell that he’s not thinking straight. He feels Frank’s hand against his cheek and hears him saying his name, but somehow he’s unable to respond or open his eyes. He’s in so much pain now that he feels it everywhere in his body and he’s terrified that he’s about to die.

Frank is absolutely freaking out when he realizes that Gerard is basically unresponsive except for making groaning sounds like he’s in extreme pain. His hands are shaking as he rushes back over to the door to grab the bag of supplies and brings them back over to the bed. He takes out the prepaid phone that he’d activated earlier, does an internet search for “how to insert an IV” and then watches a short video before attempting to perform the skill on Gerard for the first time. 

With his hands still shaking nervously, Frank rips open the IV start kit and tightly ties the bright-orange tourniquet around Gerard’s right upper arm before cleaning a spot on his hand with the antiseptic wipe that comes in the kit. Luckily the veins in Gerard’s hand are really prominent and easy to see. Frank then rips open the IV needle set and primes the positive pressure cap that comes in the set with saline using one of the pre-filled syringes, just like it showed him in the video he’d pulled up. 

“Stay with me, Gerard...stay with me...” he pleads softly.

Taking a deep breath and trying to steady his shaking hands, Frank takes the IV needle and aims the tip of it at a straight, bulging vein in Gerard’s hand, holding it at the appropriate angle before inserting it into the vein in one fluid motion. Frank immediately sees blood enter the tubing attached to the needle and knows this is a good sign. When the blood has filled the tubing he removes the tourniquet and activates the small clamp before attaching the positive pressure cap to the end of it and unclamping the tubing. He then flushes the rest of the saline in the pre-filled syringe through the tubing, clearing it of blood, before applying the clear dressing that came in the kit to secure the IV in place.

Through finding and watching more instructive videos on the internet, Frank next figures out how to get the IV fluids set up with the tubing. After he gets it all set up he realizes he’s going to have to hold up the bag manually as there’s no IV pole to hang it on. So, he stands there at the head of the bed, alternating hands whenever his arm gets sore from holding up the one-litre bag of saline. He lets half a litre go through over about an hour before adding one of the bags of vancomycin through the secondary IV tubing just like he’d seen in the video.

Frank continues to stand there anxiously, looking down at Gerard and hoping for some sort of response to the fluids and antibiotics. He has no idea when he can expect to see a change in Gerard’s condition. After another hour he’s still standing there at the head of the bed with his arms aching from holding up the bag of IV fluid. The first dose of IV vancomycin has just finished going through and Frank is closing his eyes now, hoping that by some miracle Gerard will come back from this...

*

Gerard slowly opens his eyes, feeling as though he’s waking up from a very long, deep sleep. He lets his eyes adjust to the light and then shifts his eyes to the right where he sees Frank standing there with his eyes closed, wearing a teal scrub set and holding up a half-full bag of IV fluid. Gerard watches Frank switch the hand that’s holding the bag and silently wonders how long he’s been standing there. With his eyes he follows the IV tubing all the way down from the bag of fluid to his hand, where he sees a clear dressing over top of where the needle had been inserted into a vein there. He smiles to himself, realizing that Frank had done all of this. 

As Gerard becomes even more alert, he notices that his pain level has decreased dramatically; he now only feels an uncomfortable throbbing in his left shoulder which is a huge improvement from the extreme pain he’d been feeling all throughout his body just before he’d lost consciousness. He also notices that his breathing rate has returned to normal, he no longer feels dizzy, and he doesn’t feel the same level of extreme exhaustion that he’d been feeling before. 

“What kind of alternate reality did I wake up in?” asks Gerard, his voice coming out hoarse-sounding from how dry his throat is. 

Frank startles a bit and looks down at Gerard, immediately lowering the bag he’s holding and kneeling down on the floor next to the bed. “Gerard!” he exclaims with a huge smile on his face, placing a hand on one of Gerard’s cheeks. “You’re awake,” he says, looking down at the man and feeling his eyes filling with happy tears of relief at finally seeing him open his eyes and hearing him speak again. This moment feels so surreal to Frank; he’s never experienced such an overwhelming sense of joy and relief.

“Yeah,” Gerard says with a small smile, feeling so thankful to be able to look up into Frank’s beautiful eyes like this again.

“I was so fucking worried about you,” Frank says, sniffing as tears roll down his cheeks.

Gerard brings his right hand up to wipe the fallen tears away from Frank’s cheeks. “I’m here, baby...you did it,” he says softly. “You turned into Nurse Frankie while I was out—look at you...” he says with a chuckle, eyeing Frank’s teal scrubs.

Frank giggles and blushes and Gerard’s heart melts at seeing his boy smile again. “I totally forgot I was even still wearing these,” Frank says, looking down at his clothes. 

“You look cute in them,” Gerard says, making Frank blush again. 

Frank realizes that Gerard seems like he’s back to his usual self now and it makes him feel so incredibly happy. “Thanks—I can’t say I felt cute when I was stealing in them...” he says.

Gerard realizes that Frank had stolen for him despite feeling guilty about it. “You managed to get everything okay?” he asks gently.

“Yeah,” Frank says, nodding. “It was nerve wracking as hell, but yeah.”

Gerard beams. “You’re fucking amazing, baby,” he says sincerely. “I‘m so proud of you and thankful for what you did for me...for taking such good care of me. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you,” he continues.

Frank blushes yet again. “Well, technically you wouldn’t have even ended up in this whole mess if it weren’t for me,” he says sheepishly. 

“Baby, stop...” says Gerard, taking Frank’s hand. “I’d rather get shot all over again than have never met you—and I mean that,” he says earnestly. 

Frank feels like crying from the impact of Gerard’s endearing words and he nuzzles his face in the crook of the older man’s neck, just silently hiding away there and thinking about how grateful he is to be with someone who makes him feel so loved; more loved and cared about than he has ever felt before.


	4. Chapter 4

“It looks a lot less red and inflamed around the edges today,” says Frank, examining Gerard’s gunshot wound after he removes the old, blood-soiled dressing from his left shoulder.

It’s about ten o’ clock in the morning and Frank is sitting on the edge of the bed with the supplies for the dressing change beside him on top of the bedsheets. Gerard’s right hand is connected to the IV tubing and his antibiotic is infusing while he’s lying there having his dressing changed.

“Does it?” says Gerard, bending his neck awkwardly to look down at his shoulder as best as he can.

“Yeah,” says Frank, dropping the soiled dressing into the waste bin that he’s brought over next to the bed. “There was a bit less blood on the old dressing this time, too.”

“That’s good. Feels a lot better today,” Gerard says. “Don’t get me wrong; it still hurts like a motherfucker—especially when I move my arm—but it feels a thousand times better than it has been feeling the last couple of days.”

“I’m glad,” Frank says, smiling as he fills the syringe with saline.

“How are your ribs feeling?” Gerard asks.

Frank shrugs. “Still pretty sore but they feel a bit better today, I guess. The bruises look way fucking nastier today, too,” he says as he begins to flush out Gerard’s wound with the saline-filled syringe.

“Ahh, _fuck_...” Gerard says, sharply inhaling and wincing from the stinging feeling in his wound as it’s being cleansed.

“Sorry...” says Frank. He can’t help apologizing every time he causes Gerard pain during his dressing changes. 

“I told you to stop apologizing, baby,” Gerard says gently. He glances up at the bag of vancomycin that’s hanging from the adhesive hook on the wall that Frank had bought at the store this morning. The bag is almost empty and Gerard is glad that the cannula in his right hand will be disconnected from the IV line soon. “So, I have one more dose tonight, right?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Frank, concentrating on cleaning the skin around Gerard’s wound with saline-moistened gauze.

“We can keep moving tomorrow then; get back on the road. I’ll start taking those pills you got for me. We’ve been in one spot for way too long.”

“Well, we’ve been here for so long for a good reason—there’s no way we could have kept moving with the condition you were in,” says Frank. He’s now packing Gerard’s wound with saline-moistened gauze before placing the absorbent dressing over it. 

“I know, but ideally we would have been long gone by now,” says Gerard, looking down at his freshly changed dressing. “Thanks, baby,” he says.

Frank leans over and gives Gerard a kiss. “You’re welcome,” he says. 

Frank throws away the paper packaging from the dressing and brings the syringe and the bottle of saline back to the bathroom while the last several drips of Gerard’s IV antibiotic finish infusing. He then returns to Gerard and clamps the IV tubing before disconnecting it from the site in his right hand.

“I’m gonna be so glad when this thing can get taken out,” says Gerard, holding up his right hand and examining the dressing that’s covering his IV site. 

Frank chuckles as he lies down next to Gerard in bed. “That thing saved your life,” he says.

“ _You_ saved my life, Frankie,” Gerard corrects him before kissing his cheek. 

Frank blushes and moves closer to Gerard, lying his head on his chest. “Not even sure how I managed that...I definitely got lucky there,” he says.

“I think we both did,” Gerard says, kissing Frank’s forehead this time. “Hey...do you think your parents would like me?” he asks. He’s not sure what exactly sparks the thought...maybe just thinking about how short and fragile life is after his close brushes with death. After everything that had happened he now also feels certain about what—and who—he wants in life.

Frank laughs lightly. “Fuck no,” he says honestly. 

Gerard laughs, too, surprised at the bluntness of Frank’s response. “Why not?” he asks, snuggling up closer to Frank’s body.

Frank tilts his head to look up at Gerard. “First of all, you’re a guy,” Frank begins. “Second, you smoke. Third, what the fuck would you tell them when they ask you what you do for work?”

“I can always quit smoking and just make some shit up about what I do for a living,” says Gerard. “Would they really have a problem with you having a boyfriend?”

“They put me in Catholic school growing up—do I really need to say any more than that?”

“Shit...” Gerard says empathetically, nuzzling his face against Frank’s neck and kissing him there. “I really can’t picture you as a good little Catholic boy,” he whispers against his skin.

Frank laughs, enjoying the feel of Gerard’s lips on his skin. “I was never a “good little Catholic boy”—I was a little shit and I admit it.”

Gerard pulls back to look at Frank now. “ _Was_? You still are one,” he says, smirking cheekily.

“Am not!” Frank says, giggling playfully as Gerard lies there smirking at him.

“Yeah...says the kid who punched me in the face for like, nothing— _twice_ ,” Gerard says, biting his lip to keep himself from laughing when he sees the incredulous look on Frank’s face. “What? It’s fucking true,” he says, unable to hold back his laughter any longer.

“Okay, fine, you’re right. You didn’t have to call me out like that though,” Frank says, smirking as he bites his lip. “Why’d you ask about my parents anyway?”

“Ah, I just wanted to hear you talk,” says Gerard dreamily, not feeling ready to share with Frank how far ahead he’s already thinking in terms of their relationship.

Frank giggles sweetly and laces his fingers together with Gerard’s. “I think you’re obsessed with me...” he says teasingly.

“I fucking _am_ obsessed with you, baby. I love every single thing about you...every single part of you...” Gerard says, his voice trailing off between soft kisses pressed against Frank’s lips. 

Frank almost feels lightheaded from the way his heart is fluttering at Gerard’s sweet words and the way that he’s looking at him like he’s the only person in the world. “What’s your favourite part of me?” he asks softly.

Gerard chuckles lightly. “Everything...” he says, smiling against Frank’s lips.

Frank giggles again before kissing Gerard sensually. “I really wish we could have sex right now...” he says longingly against his lips.

Gerard pulls back a bit. “What do you mean you “wish?”” he asks with a puzzled expression on his face. “There’s nothing stopping us...” 

“Come on, babe—you can’t fuck me with a two-day-old gunshot wound. You can barely even move your left arm right now,” says Frank.

Gerard laughs. “What the hell do I need my left arm for while I’m fucking you?” he asks with a cheeky smirk on his face. “You can just get on top and ride my dick...” he says, leaning in and kissing Frank’s neck again.

Frank bites his lip, so turned on by the idea of sitting on his boyfriend’s cock. “Are you sure?” he asks. “I don’t wanna hurt you...”

Gerard smiles and kisses the tip of Frank’s nose. “You’re not gonna hurt me,” he says. 

“Okay,” Frank says, kissing Gerard before getting off the bed to grab some body lotion from the motel bathroom to use as lube. “We don’t have a condom,” he points out when he returns to the bed.

“Do you care?” asks Gerard, using his right hand to pop open the button on his jeans.

Frank sets the small bottle of lotion down next to Gerard and helps him unzip his jeans before pulling them down to his knees so he can kick them off. “I don’t really care about anything anymore,” Frank admits, feeling his face get warmer when he sees the large bulge of Gerard’s hard cock at the front of his underwear. “We could both get fucking shot and killed by Mason’s people tomorrow, so...whatever, fuck it,” he says, his casual shrug incongruent with the way he feels about his blunt statement. 

Gerard feels a twinge of sadness as he watches Frank undress himself, understanding exactly how he feels. He sees the now dark-purple bruises on Frank’s ribs and chest and has a sudden flashback to Mason kicking the shit out of him back at Redlight the other night... Thankfully, Gerard is soon distracted by Frank pulling at the waistband of his underwear, exposing his hard cock and making it slap back lightly against his belly just before he wraps his hand around it and begins to jerk Gerard off while he straddles his legs.

“Fuck, Frankie...” Gerard groans softly, letting his eyes slip closed as Frank pleasures him with his hand. “I want you on your knees sucking my dick,” he says. 

Frank feels a pleasant shiver go through his body and he nods, following Gerard’s lead and getting up off the bed. Gerard sits down on the bottom edge of the bed while Frank kneels down in front of him between his legs with his face right in front of Gerard’s thick, hard cock. 

“This how you want me?” asks Frank, looking up at Gerard from his spot on the floor, on his knees. He bites his bottom lip seductively; he knows he looks sexy right now and he knows it’s making Gerard even hotter for him. “On my knees with your big cock down my throat?”

Gerard smirks and holds the base of his cock with his right hand, slapping it lightly against Frank’s cheeks and his saliva-moistened lips. “Since when are you so fucking naughty?” he asks.

Frank blushes and opens his mouth, trying to suck Gerard’s cock. Gerard keeps moving it away with his hand whenever Frank gets close though, making the younger man start whimpering needily as he looks up at him. “Babe...” Frank whines.

“Hmm? You want this dick?” Gerard asks, rubbing the head of his cock along Frank’s bottom lip.

Frank nods, never breaking eye contact with Gerard until he finally guides his cock into Frank’s mouth, prompting him to start sucking it eagerly, getting the entire length slick with saliva.

“Oh my God...” Gerard moans as the head of his cock hits the back of Frank’s throat repeatedly as he bobs his head up and down on it. Gerard puts his right hand in Frank’s hair and grabs it firmly. “Open up your throat for me; choke on that dick,” he says gruffly.

With both of his hands grabbing onto Gerard’s muscular quads, Frank tries to open his throat up more to accept more of Gerard’s thick cock, and Gerard pushes his head down, making him sputter and cough around it. 

“That’s it, baby...” Gerard says, stroking Frank’s hair as he deep throats his cock. “Just like that...fuck, that’s good...”

Frank doesn’t even have half of Gerard’s cock down his throat and he can still barely manage that. There are tears streaming down his face from choking on it but he doesn’t care; right now he just cares about making Gerard feel good.

“Get up on the bed now—wanna taste that ass,” Gerard says. Frank pulls off of Gerard’s cock and looks up at him with his tear-stained cheeks and his lips messy with strings of saliva. “Was I too rough?” he asks as Frank gets to his feet.

“No; it was hot,” says Frank, smirking a bit as he gets onto the bed and lies down on his back. “How do you want me?” he asks.

“Bent over the edge of the bed,” Gerard replies. Frank does as Gerard says and now it’s Gerard turn to get onto his knees between Frank’s legs where he’s bent over the bed. “Spread that ass for me,” he says, seeing that he can’t do that with only one working arm. 

Gerard glances up at the sexy tattooed handguns on Frank’s lower back as Frank reaches back with both of his hands, the side of his face pressed against the mattress as he spreads his asscheeks open. Gerard spits right onto Frank’s tight, pink hole and then buries his face in his ass, licking at his hole feverishly, tasting him.

“Fuck yeah...” Frank moans, enjoying the feel of Gerard’s tongue flitting against his sensitive hole.

“You taste so fucking good, baby boy,” Gerard says. He reaches underneath Frank’s body and pulls out his dick so it’s pointing downwards before beginning to jerk him off while he sucks and kisses his tight little cherry. “Such a sweet fuckin’ hole...”

“Mmm...that’s your hole, babe... just fuckin’ take it,” Frank moans, ready to feel Gerard stretching him out.

“Goddamn...” Gerard says, kissing Frank’s asscheeks. “I don’t fuck you for two days and suddenly you’re naughty as hell.”

Frank laughs a bit as Gerard stands up and comes around to lie down on the bed. “Maybe I was always this naughty...” he says, sitting up and moving to straddle Gerard’s legs while he coats his dick with lotion. 

“What then? You were just shy before?” Gerard asks, smirking as he tosses the bottle of lotion to the side.

Frank blushes and shrugs a little. “Maybe I’m just more comfortable expressing myself in that way now...knowing that we love each other,” he says. 

Gerard smiles affectionately up at Frank and rubs his right hand up and down his thigh, squeezing it gently. “I love hearing that,” he says. 

Frank leans over and kisses Gerard softly on the lips before sitting up again and reaching behind and underneath himself to guide Gerard’s cockhead to his waiting hole. Frank begins to press himself down onto Gerard’s cock and when he finally feels the head enter his tightness his eyes slip closed and he moans from the pleasurable feeling of being suddenly stretched out and filled up.

“Baby...” Gerard says softly looking up at Frank and intently watching his pleasure-filled facial expressions as he moans and begins to ride his thick cock. “That’s it, baby...just like that,” he continues.

“Oh my fucking God...” Frank moans, feeling the head of Gerard’s cock brush against his sweet spot when he grinds down hard on it.

“Fuck yeah...use that dick; make yourself feel good,” Gerard urges, still watching Frank looking so sexy as he rides his cock.

“Your dick is so fucking good,” Frank says breathily, continuing to grind down hard, fucking himself on his boyfriend’s cock.

“Yeah? I’m gonna take care of that hole, baby...take care of my boy,” says Gerard, beginning to thrust his hips upwards, pushing himself deep against Frank’s prostate each time.

“Fuck yeah...take care of me,” Frank moans, feeling beads of sticky, clear precum begin to drip from the tip of his cock from how much his prostate is being stimulated.

“Tell me how much you like that big dick inside you,” says Gerard, feeling himself getting close from how good Frank’s riding him; how good his tight, warm hole feels sliding up and down his cock... 

“I fuckin’ love it...you’re stretching me out so good,” Frank says breathily. “Want you to come inside me...”

“Yeah? You want my cum inside you?” says Gerard, right on the edge of his orgasm.

“Fuck yeah, babe,” says Frank, riding Gerard faster now with his hands pressed against his firm, muscular chest; he can tell by Gerard’s body language that he’s close to blowing his load.

“Oh my God...your hole feels so damn good,” Gerard moans. He grabs onto Frank’s thigh and squeezes his eyes shut as he feels the familiar sensation of pleasant warmth building up inside of him. “Fuck, I’m coming...” he groans, feeling his body tensing up as electric pleasure begins to ripple through it as his orgasm overtakes him.

Frank slows his riding down, feeling Gerard’s warm cum squishing around inside of him, and he then starts jerking himself off, enjoying the feel of being filled up with both Gerard’s cock and his cum. It’s not long before Frank is moaning and throwing his head back as he shoots his load all over Gerard’s torso and chest as he orgasms, being careful to avoid getting any on his left shoulder so he doesn’t soil his freshly changed dressing.

“God, you’re so fuckin’ beautiful and sexy, Frankie,” says Gerard, looking up at his younger boyfriend in awe as he’s panting and still holding his cock in his hand with white cum dripping off the head of it onto Gerard’s stomach. 

Frank smiles and blushes and lifts himself off of Gerard’s cock with a pleasant groan before lying down next to him. “Does your shoulder feel okay?” he asks, looking over at Gerard.

“Yeah, I’m good, baby,” Gerard says, leaning in to kiss Frank. 

Frank looks down at Gerard’s cum-splattered chest and torso after they part their lips. “I’m gonna go get a washcloth and get you cleaned up before that dries,” he says. He kisses Gerard once more before getting off the bed and heading into the bathroom.

*

Gerard is lying wide awake in bed. It’s already two o’ clock in the morning and he still hasn’t been able to fall asleep yet. His left shoulder is killing him right now but the thing that’s really keeping him awake is the fact that he just can’t stop thinking about everything... 

First, there’s the money issue—they’re running low on cash and once it’s gone they don’t currently have any way of making or obtaining more. They’re not desperately low yet, but with expenses like nightly motel costs, food, gas and medical supplies, the amount of cash they have on hand right now is definitely not going to sustain them for more than a few weeks. It also doesn’t help that Frank had used a chunk of their cash to buy illegal narcotics the other day. 

And that’s another thing that’s been keeping Gerard awake and thinking: Frank’s pill addiction. It worries him so much. He can tell that Frank is having a hard time coping after what had happened at Redlight, but every time he tries to talk to Frank about it he just shuts him out, saying he doesn’t want to talk about it, that he just wants to forget. Gerard is sure that Frank is still using because there are times he can just tell that he’s stoned, like when he starts nodding off in the middle of a conversation. He’s just not sure what to do about it at this point. 

On top of all of that, there’s the thoughts about Trevor that keep Gerard up at night... The image of his best friend bleeding out on the floor haunts him. He thinks about the unfairness of it all—Trevor was one of the kindest people Gerard had ever known, even to the end when he’d selflessly saved their lives and in turn sacrificed his own. He feels so fucking angry and guilty about the entire thing. 

Gerard wipes the tears that are rolling out of the corners of his eyes and behind his ears as he lies there on his back and he sighs, wishing he could just turn off his brain and fall asleep. He suddenly looks over at Frank when he feels the younger man’s body become restless as he lies there beside him. Frank still looks like he’s asleep but he’s moving his legs around and then he starts saying, “No...no...no...” in a soft voice. Gerard realizes that Frank is probably having another nightmare so he puts his hand on his shoulder, gently shaking him until he wakes up with a start.

Frank opens his eyes and looks up at Gerard with an expression that can only be described as fearful and it sends a cold shiver down Gerard’s spine.

“Hey...you okay? You were talking in your sleep,” says Gerard. Frank sits up in bed, still not saying anything, and Gerard notices his chest rising and falling rapidly. “Frankie?” he asks. 

Gerard winces as he manages to get himself sitting upright next to Frank in bed. He looks over at him and sees that he still has that fearful look on his face and it’s beginning to worry Gerard that he still hasn’t said anything. Gerard starts to put his right arm around Frank’s waist to comfort him but as soon as he touches Frank he shrinks away from his touch and gets out of bed. Gerard is puzzled when Frank goes into the bathroom and he hears the _click_ of the lock on the door after he closes it.

Gerard sighs, not sure what to make of what just happened. He can tell that Frank‘s nightmare has obviously upset him, but he usually lets Gerard hold him and kiss him until he feels okay again. This time is different though; it’s almost as if Frank wants nothing to do with him right now. 

Gerard gets out of bed and knocks on the bathroom door. “Frankie? What’s the matter, baby?” he asks. “Come talk to me.”

“I’m fine, Gerard. Just another nightmare. Go back to bed, okay?” Frank says from the other side of the door.

“Okay,” Gerard says, rubbing his hand over his face frustratedly. “I love you,” he says.

“Love you,” Frank says quietly.

Gerard sighs and goes back over to the bed, getting underneath the sheets and closing his eyes, still worried about Frank. He’s not sure how, but he eventually falls asleep and then wakes up to the room bright with daylight behind his eyelids. When he opens his eyes and realizes that Frank’s side of the bed is still empty he immediately gets out of bed and goes over to the bathroom door. He turns the door handle and finds that it’s still locked. He bangs on the door with his fist.

“Frank?” he shouts, his heart beginning to pound with anxiety when he hears no answer. “Frank?!” he shouts louder, banging on the door again. 

“What?” Frank finally says on the other side of the door, sounding sleepy.

“Open the door right now,” Gerard says firmly. “Were you in here all fucking night?” 

“Gerard, I’m...busy. Just gimme some privacy, okay?” Frank says, slurring his words and sounding irritated.

Gerard bites his lip, feeling himself growing angry and worried as he can tell that Frank is fucked up right now by the way he’s speaking. “Don’t fucking bullshit me,” he says. “Open the goddamn door _now_ or I’m gonna kick it in.”

“Just chill...fuck. I’ll be out in a minute, okay?” 

“That’s it—I’m kicking the fucking door in. I wouldn’t stand behind it if I were you...” says Gerard. He takes a few steps back before winding up with his right leg and kicking the door as hard as he can, sending it flying open with a loud _bang_ and punching a hole in the wall behind the door where the doorknob crashes through the drywall. The sudden intense movement makes something in his left shoulder pull and he winces and groans in pain, holding his shoulder with his right hand. 

“What the hell, Gerard?!” Frank yells, rubbing his nose. He’s standing at the bathroom counter, shirtless and holding a rolled up paper bill in his right hand. There’s a few lines of white powder on the bathroom counter and Gerard looks down at them and then back up at Frank, who’s still rubbing his nose and sniffing a bit. “You didn’t have to kick the fucking door in; I told you I’d be out in a minute,” he says.

“What is that shit?” Gerard asks, gesturing to the white lines of powder on the countertop.

“Pills and coke,” Frank says casually. “What the fuck does it matter anyway?” he asks with a shrug. 

Gerard sighs and runs a hand through his hair frustratedly. “What the _fuck_ is wrong with you, Frank?” he asks. “Did you forget that we’re going back on the road today?”

“No,” Frank replies simply, looking like he’s completely out of it and not himself.

“So, you were gonna drive high? Was that your plan?” Gerard asks. “You know I can’t drive with my fucked up shoulder, right?”

“I can still drive after I sober up...it’ll just take me a couple hours,” says Frank, rubbing his nose again. 

Gerard shakes his head, glancing down at the lines on the counter. “Since when do you do fucking coke?” he asks sadly. Frank just shrugs, and Gerard notices that his eyes are welling up with tears. “Do you have more? And don’t fucking lie to me.”

“No, this is it...but, I need it. Just let me binge the rest of it and then I’m done, I swear to God...” Frank begs, wiping the fallen tears from his cheeks. 

Gerard feels anger rising within him again, seeing how these drugs are making a mess of Frank, controlling him. It’s fucking sad for Gerard to hear Frank say that he thinks he needs them. Without thinking he steps forward and swipes his hand across the countertop, clearing the drugs off the counter and into the sink before turning on the tap and washing them down the drain.

“No! What the fuck?!” Frank yells at Gerard. “You fucking asshole!” he continues, his eyes widened with anger and still filled with tears.

“Call me an asshole all you want—you don’t need that shit,” says Gerard firmly.

Frank puts his hands to his face and starts sobbing as he drops down onto the cold, tiled bathroom floor, curling up into a ball. Gerard sighs and sits down next to Frank on the floor, his left shoulder still throbbing after he’d aggravated it by kicking in the door. He rubs his right hand up and down Frank’s back comfortingly as he lies there crying on the floor.

“Shh, baby...” Gerard whispers as he rubs Frank’s back.

“Just leave me the fuck alone,” Frank sobs, trying to shrug Gerard’s hand off of him. 

“Frankie, would you just relax? I was only trying to help you,” Gerard says gently.

Frank sighs. “I’m just so goddamn miserable,” he says, his voice sounding thick from crying. “I’m sick of having nightmares every night and I’m sick of being afraid of dying.” 

“I know, sweetheart,” Gerard says as Frank moves to lay his head down in his lap. “Snorting coke and pills in the bathroom all night isn’t gonna help with that though,” he continues, stroking Frank’s hair now.

“It sure as fuck helps me to forget...” says Frank. 

“Baby, you know I’m here for you whenever you wanna talk about shit, right? I don’t care if it’s the middle of the night or something; I want you to share with me. I love you,” says Gerard.

“I love you, too,” says Frank. “I just...the nightmare I had last night really fucked me up,” he says.

“Yeah? What was it about?” Gerard asks gently.

Frank nuzzles his face farther into Gerard’s lap. “We were at Redlight—as usual—except this time _you_ were Mason...” he says.

“ _I_ was Mason?” Gerard asks, puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“You were the one who...killed me...” Frank says just before beginning to sob again.

Gerard’s heart sinks into his stomach, realizing now why Frank hadn’t wanted to be held by him when he’d woken up. “Baby...” he says gently. “That’s fucking terrible...”

“I was so scared to fall asleep after that so I just did some coke to stay awake and now I feel like absolute shit and guilty as hell for fucking up again,” Frank says through his sobs. “I’m so sorry, Gerard. I acted like such a fucking dick to you before...”

“It’s okay, Frankie...” says Gerard, stroking Frank’s hair again. “I know things are really tough right now, but I promise they’ll get better. You’re so fucking strong and you’ll get through this— _we’ll_ get through this—together. Okay?”

Frank nods, his sobs quieting now as his head still rests in Gerard’s lap. “So...what’s the plan?” he asks with a sniff. “Neither of us is able to drive right now...”

“Well, I’m gonna have to drive anyway until you sober up. We can’t stay here any longer,” says Gerard. 

Frank looks up and gasps when he catches a glimpse of Gerard’s left shoulder where there’s a considerable amount of fresh blood soaking through his dressing. “Oh my God!” he exclaims as he sits up. “Gerard, you’re bleeding.”

Gerard turns his head and looks down at his shoulder. “Damn,” he says, seeing the blood-soaked dressing. “I fucked it up pretty good when I kicked in the door.”

“Shit...you need to be careful, babe. I’m not gonna let you drive like this.”

Gerard chuckles. “I love how you think you can stop me,” he says with a smile, kissing Frank’s forehead.


	5. Chapter 5

It’s been two days since Frank and Gerard had left the motel in Idaho. They’d driven down to Nevada and are now staying at a hotel in Las Vegas, where Gerard is planning to visit a few casinos and hopefully win some money seeing that they’re steadily running out of cash the longer they stay on the run. Gerard’s not entirely sure if gambling with the money they have left is even a good idea but it’s the best he can come up with for now.

Gerard’s left shoulder wound has felt pretty sore for the last couple of days after he’d kicked in the bathroom door of the motel room back in Idaho and it’s been bleeding on and off, causing him to have to change the dressing more often than before. It doesn’t feel like it’s infected and he’s still taking the oral antibiotics that Frank had stolen for him from the hospital, but he’s definitely paying careful attention to it to make sure there’s nothing serious going on that’s affecting its healing.

Frank hasn’t used any substances in two whole days now and although he’s not quite feeling any withdrawal symptoms yet, he noticed that his hands were shaking a bit when he was driving last night and was relieved when they’d finally arrived at the hotel in Vegas so they could rest. He definitely feels like being sober is painful with all of the anxious thoughts caused by his violent nightmares still plaguing his mind, but he’s trying his best to keep Gerard informed about how he’s feeling and not just keep everything bottled up inside.

It’s now early afternoon and Frank pleasantly stirs awake in the sunlit hotel room when he feels Gerard’s warm body pressing up against him from behind. 

“Morning, baby,” Gerard says, kissing Frank’s bare shoulder. “Did you manage to get some more sleep after you woke up last night? I tried to stay awake with you for longer but I was dead tired.”

Frank had woken up from yet another nightmare in the middle of the night last night and Gerard had held him and stroked his hair while he lay awake, trying to calm him down. 

“Yeah,” Frank says, nodding and turning to face Gerard. “Thanks,” he says, kissing him softly.

“Good,” Gerard says, smiling. “I’m so proud of you, Frankie,” he says.

Frank looks puzzled as he blushes. “I didn’t even do anything...” he says, laughing lightly.

“You’ve been clean for two days; I’d say that’s something.”

Frank smiles. “Yeah, I guess so,” he agrees.

“What do you wanna do today?” 

Frank yawns and stretches. “I dunno,” he says with a deep sigh. “Just lie here with you,” he admits dreamily.

Gerard chuckles. “C’mon, we’re in _Vegas_ , Frankie; there’s so much to do.”

“Hmm...how ‘bout _you_ decide what we do today,” Frank suggests. He honestly doesn’t care what they do because he just doesn’t feel like doing anything at all.

“Would you go to a casino with me?” Gerard asks. “I wanna sit at a poker table for a few hours, try and win some cash—we’re running out.”

Frank makes a face. “Poker? That’s like, the most boring shit ever to watch,” he says. 

“I don’t even think they’ll let you just stand there and watch,” Gerard says.

“Huh. Well, what am I gonna do by myself at a casino for a few hours?” asks Frank. “I’m not even slightly interested in sitting at a slot machine or anything like that.”

Gerard shrugs. “You could go hang out on your own somewhere else for a while...explore?” he suggests.

Frank scoffs. “Like hell am I gonna go anywhere without you,” he says.

Gerard smiles, realizing how attached Frank is to him. “Well, there’s this place we could go to that has a poker room upstairs and a dance club with a bar downstairs...”

“Okay, I’m down for that,” says Frank. “I‘ll just hang out at the bar while you win us some cash,” he says with a smirk.

*

Later that night, Frank is standing at the bar inside this club sipping his drink, bored as hell as he waits for the ecstasy pills he’d taken to kick in. He didn’t think there was any way he’d be able to make it three hours in this club by himself sober, so he’d easily found someone to buy drugs from and had taken the pills discreetly at the back of the room before heading to the bar. This is his first time taking ecstasy and he really doesn’t know what to expect from the high. Before Gerard had gone upstairs to the poker room, he’d warned Frank not to draw any attention to himself while he’s down here, but Frank can’t help the way his ears perk up when he hears the announcer on stage say something that sparks his interest...

“And now, ladies and gentlemen and others, is our featured event of the night: the _Hot Body Contest_! Sign up with the beautiful Lana at the left side of the stage if you would like to participate! The grand prize is...one free night in one of the most luxurious hotels on the strip—a twelve-hundred dollar value! Second prize is five hundred dollars in cash! Third prize is a free three-course dinner for two at our exotic lounge!”

Enticed by the prospect of winning a prize, Frank leaves his spot at the bar and makes his way to the left side of the stage at the front of the club. There, he meets a woman who he presumes to be Lana: she’s wearing a sparkly showgirl headpiece with red feathers and is holding a clipboard in her hands.

“Hey, sweetheart. Are you here to sign up for the Hot Body Contest?” asks Lana.

“Yeah,” Frank says, nodding.

“Excellent! What’s your name?”

“Uh, Frankie.”

Lana writes Frank’s name down on the clipboard and then directs him towards a narrow passageway that leads backstage. When he gets back there, he realizes he’s now in a dressing room with a bunch of half-naked people changing clothes. The walls are lined with mirrors which have bright lights above them and the room is bustling with people. Frank looks around the room, suddenly feeling the most confident he’s ever felt in his life: he feels like he’s the _shit_ right now. He smirks to himself, realizing that this feeling must be his high coming up, and decides that he fucking loves this drug already. 

“Hey, kid—put these on.”

Frank turns around and is now standing face-to-face with a tall, brunette woman who’s dressed in all black and wearing a headset. She shoves some clothes into Frank’s arms and he takes them and holds them up in front of his face. His eyes widen when he sees that he’s going to be wearing these tiny denim shorts and a white T-shirt that looks like it’s missing half the fabric on the lower part of it.

“Come on, we don’t have all day. I’ve got a show to run here,” the woman says impatiently, looking at her phone momentarily as she chomps on a piece of gum. “ _Put those on_ —I need to make sure they fit you,” she reiterates, gesturing to the clothes Frank is still holding up and staring at.

Frank sets the garments down on the countertop in front of the mirrors and then takes off his T-shirt before putting on the white crop-top.

“Oh my God...where the hell did you get those bruises from?” the woman asks, her face suddenly contorted into an expression of concern. 

“Oh, I took a bad fall,” Frank lies as he tugs his pants down his legs and steps out of them. “I skateboard,” he adds when he notices the woman’s look of skepticism.

Realizing that these shorts are basically just denim underwear, Frank pulls down his boxers and takes them off causing the woman to look away with an expression of what Frank interprets as disgust. He rolls his eyes and then quickly puts on the denim shorts, managing to somehow tuck his dick into the tightness of them before zipping them up. He looks in the mirror and sees that half of his ass is practically hanging out, but he decides that he likes how he looks. 

“I think they fit me just fine,” says Frank, checking himself out. “Did you pick this outfit? How’d you know it’d look so good on me?” he asks, touching the woman’s forearm, suddenly feeling more talkative and extroverted than he normally is.

The woman looks him up and down and nods her head disinterestedly as she continues to chew her gum. “You’ll have thirty seconds up on stage to show off your body however you want. No nudity and no obscene language or gestures or else you’ll be immediately removed from the stage and disqualified from winning any prizes. Questions?”

Frank shakes his head and runs a hand through his tousled hair, realizing how good the texture of it feels against his skin right now. “Nah, I got it,” he says, still looking at himself in the mirror. Frank hasn’t felt sexy very many times in his life so far, but he knows he definitely feels sexy as hell right now.

The woman rolls her eyes and then walks away over to the next participant, leaving Frank to continue staring at himself in the mirror. As he waits to be called up to the stage, Frank finds himself feeling increasingly confident and euphoric and ready to strut his stuff on stage for everyone to see. He only wishes that Gerard was in the crowd to see him and he smiles to himself, imagining how his boyfriend would react to seeing him wearing this outfit; imagining his jaw on the floor and his cock stiffening at just the sight of him...

“Frankie? Is there a Frankie around here? You’re up next.”

Frank snaps out of his thoughts and looks towards the stage door where a bearded man who’s wearing a headset over his dark, curly hair is scanning the room. As he walks over to the man, Frank is feeling as though he’s walking on a cloud and like everything is perfect in the world. He follows the man to the side of the stage, behind the curtain, and fights the urge to ask the man if he can run his hands through his hair. He has this overwhelming urge to touch everything right now because everything feels so nice against his skin.

Frank’s not nervous at all when he hears the announcer on stage say, “...and, now, here’s our next participant... Please give a warm welcome to... _Frankie_!”

The curly-haired man gives Frank a gentle push towards the stage and then Frank walks out, feeling blinded by the extra-bright lights but loving the applause and cheers he’s getting from the crowd as “Hypnotize” by Biggie begins to play over the speaker system as he walks with as much sexy attitude as he can towards what he realizes is a stripper pole in the middle of the stage. Frank grabs onto the pole and begins to twirl around it, earning several loud cheers and whistles from people in the crowd, and then he turns around and shakes his half-exposed ass to the beat of the music, dropping it low to the ground a few times as he does and feeling like he’s on top of the world from all the attention he’s getting. He’s absolutely loving this. He finally feels _good_ for once—not wired like when he does coke or out of it like when he takes pills; just _good_.

Frank grabs onto the pole again and faces away from the crowd as he bends forward and slides his hands down the pole until he’s touching his toes, shaking his ass naughtily while he’s bent over. The crowd erupts with cheers and whistles again as he continues to show off his half-naked body. He then turns around to face the crowd and leans against the pole, sliding his back down it until he’s squatting with his knees spread open as he sways his hips seductively. 

Frank is more than ready to keep going but soon the music begins to fade and the lights change and suddenly the announcer is walking back onstage and the crowd is cheering and whistling and applauding loudly and enthusiastically as Frank smiles and curtsies adorably.

“Well...I think we’re all going to need a cold drink after that one!” the announcer says, pretending to wipe sweat off his brow as Frank walks down the stairs at the front of the stage.

Absolutely beaming and feeling a rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins after his performance, Frank makes his way back to the bar and asks for a glass of ice water before he turns around and leans back against the counter while he watches the rest of the show. 

“Hey...Frankie?” 

Frank turns around and he’s surprised to see this tall, fit, blond-haired bartender eyeing him up and down. The man looks to be in his mid to late-thirties and has a bit of rugged-looking stubble on his face. He’s wearing a tank top and Frank can’t help noticing how ripped his tattooed arms are.

“Hi,” Frank says, feeling his cheeks getting warm from the way this attractive guy is obviously checking him out. “Are you talking to me?” he asks, immediately feeling stupid afterwards.

“Yeah. Your name _is_ Frankie, right?” the guy says, smirking a bit.

Frank nods and feels his face get even warmer. “Yeah, that’s me,” he says.

“I was watching you up on stage just now... Do you have any idea how fuckin’ hot you are?” the guy says, still ogling Frank’s body.

Frank giggles, embarrassed by the compliment, and glances down for a second, not sure how to respond. 

“You do, don’t you? I can tell,” the guy says, smirking when Frank looks up again and meets his bright, ocean-blue eyes.

Frank laughs shyly and shakes his head. “My boyfriend thinks I’m hot,” he says, hoping the guy who’s flirting with him will back off after he mentions he isn’t single.

The guy raises an eyebrow. “I’d be worried if he didn’t. Where’s he at?”

“He’s upstairs at a poker table.”

“Think he’d mind if I danced with you for a bit when the show’s done?”

Frank laughs lightly. “Yeah, he’d mind,” he says, nodding.

“So...he’d have a problem with you dancing with me, but he was okay with you shaking your cute, sexy ass on stage half-naked for everyone in here to see?” the guy asks, looking puzzled.

Frank blushes again. “Well, I didn’t exactly ask him if he was okay with it...I just kinda went ahead and did it,” he says.

“So, you just do whatever you want, then, huh? Damn...I think that’s so sexy,” the guy says. “Do you think he’ll be upset?”

Frank nervously shifts on his feet where he stands, growing a little uncomfortable by this guy’s incessant flirting. “I dunno. Probably?” he says, rubbing his sore, tired jaw which he’s only just realized he’s been clenching this entire time. 

The guy reaches into his pocket and takes out a pack of gum, holding it out to Frank. “Want a piece? Helps with the teeth-grinding,” he says. “You’re on molly, right?” he asks, smirking a bit as he notices the blank expression on Frank’s face.

Frank continues to stare at the guy for a moment without replying, just wondering how he knows he’s on ecstasy right now, and then he takes the pack of gum and pulls out a piece before handing it back to him. “Thanks,” he says. “You’re not a cop or anything, are you?”

The guy chuckles. “Fuck no. I can just tell that you’re rolling,” he says. “You ever taken it before?”

“No,” says Frank, shaking his head. “I’ve taken other shit but it’s my first time doing E.”

“Like it?”

“Yeah, it’s fucking awesome,” Frank admits, laughing.

The guy smirks and leans across the counter a bit. “You should try fucking on it,” he says. 

“Yeah?” says Frank, laughing again. “What’s that like?” he asks curiously.

“You last way longer and it’s so much more intense when you come,” the guy says. “I wish I could show you—your boyfriend probably wouldn’t like that though.”

Frank feels his stomach flip-flop, feeling increasingly uncomfortable by this guy’s intense flirting.

“So, do you do a lot of partying?” the guy asks, changing the subject. “You mentioned you’ve taken other shit besides molly.”

Frank shakes his head. “No, I don’t really party; I just get fucked up,” he says. “It’s not even fun, honestly.”

“Does your man get fucked up with you?”

Frank scoffs. “Hell no,” he says. “He hates the fact that I even do drugs.”

“See, that’s why it’s not fun for you—you gotta do it with other people,” the guy says. “There’s this private penthouse party happening tomorrow night. All the drugs and booze you can imagine—all for free. Gimme your number and I’ll text you the address,” the guy says, taking out his phone.

“Shit...that sounds amazing, but I don’t think my boyfriend would be okay with me going,” says Frank. “Besides, I’ve sorta been trying not to use as often.”

The guy raises an eyebrow. “What happened to doing whatever you want?” he asks with a smirk. “Here, just put your number in and ask him about it later,” he urges, placing his phone right into Frank’s hands.

Frank looks at the small, bright screen and hesitates for just a moment before impulsively tapping out his phone number and then handing the guy’s phone back to him. “Are you gonna be there?” he asks, not even sure why he‘s asking.

“Who do you think’s hosting the party?” the guy says, smirking again. He suddenly looks up and over Frank’s shoulder and nods at someone behind him. “Alright, I gotta get back to work. See you tomorrow, I hope.”

“Okay, uh, yeah, sure,” says Frank, feeling a bit flustered as he nods. The guy gives a small wave to the person behind Frank who then walks up to the counter and orders a drink. 

Frank steps aside along the bar and watches the guy for a little while as he works; pouring shots, shaking cocktails, flipping glasses and catching them. He soon realizes he hadn’t even asked the guy what his name is, but then he figures it doesn’t matter anyway. Frank sits at the bar for a while, watching the rest of the show and sipping his water, and soon he’s surprised by the announcer presenting him as the winner of first place in the Hot Body Contest.

Frank momentarily goes back up on stage to collect his voucher for the free night in a fancy hotel and then he decides he needs to get out of here and get some air as he’s starting to feel like he’s overheating. He finishes the last of his water, spits his stale gum out into the empty cup and then leaves it on top of the bar counter before going out into the lobby beside the coat-check to phone Gerard.

Gerard is still sitting at a poker table upstairs. He’s staring intently at his hand as he concentrates on deciding which card to play next when he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. He fishes it out and gets permission from the card dealer to step away from the table for a moment so that he can answer.

“Hey, what’s up, Frankie?” he asks. He hears the faint sound of pulsing dance music in the background of the call.

“Hey, I need to get outta here; need some fuckin’ air, babe,” Frank says intensely on the other end, speaking quickly. “Are you almost done? Can we go?” he asks.

Gerard notices that there’s something different about the way Frank is speaking right now. He’s not sure what Frank is on, but he can tell that he’s definitely not sober and it makes him anxious knowing that his boyfriend has been by himself downstairs in the club and not totally aware of his surroundings.

“Are you okay? What did you take?” 

“Ecstasy,” Frank says like it’s nothing. 

Gerard sighs and runs a hand through his hair, feeling stressed out by Frank’s increasing polysubstance abuse. “Oh, okay...” he says, feeling powerless. “I’m gonna cash out now, I guess. I’ll meet you in the lobby in like ten minutes.”

“Wait...do you wanna fuck me in the bathroom before we leave?“ Frank asks, giggling. “Some guy told me that fucking on E is like...incredible.”

“What?” Gerard asks sharply, suddenly feeling on-edge after hearing Frank mention “fucking” and “some guy” in the same sentence. “Who said that to you?”

“One of the bartenders down here...he told me he thought I was hot after he saw me dancing on stage in this Hot Body Contest I entered earlier.”

“ _Hot Body Contest_?” Gerard reiterates, feeling his jaw clench. “Goddammit, Frank—do I need to fucking babysit you? Like, is that honestly what you need? ‘Cause it seems like lately you’re incapable of making any good decisions. What part of “don’t draw any attention to yourself” didn’t you understand?”

“Gerard, chill—I won us a free night at this really nice hotel.”

“Don’t fucking tell me to “chill,” Frank,” Gerard says, trying to keep his voice down. “I’ve been way too fucking “chill” with you lately. Your drug use is becoming extremely problematic and it’s clouding your judgement.”

“Come on, babe...you should have seen me up there...” says Frank. “You’ll wanna fuck me on sight when you see what I’m wearing,” he adds, giggling.

“Yeah, and apparently so did every other guy in the place...” Gerard mutters.

“Not _every_ guy,” says Frank, and Gerard can hear the eye roll in his voice.

“Oh, so it was just that one bartender? Okay, well there’s a load off my mind,” Gerard says sarcastically. “Did he say anything else? Did he touch you?”

“He said he wished he could show me what fucking on E is like, but that my boyfriend “probably wouldn’t like that,”” Frank says.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” Gerard says, chuckling darkly and feeling anger rising in his chest. “Alright, when I get down there you’re gonna take me to this piece of shit and I’m gonna fuckin’ deck this guy,” he says with his fists clenched and his eyes burning with rage. 

“Gerard, you _can’t_ ,” Frank says pleadingly.

“Well, I’m not letting some fucking douchebag bartender get away with telling you he wishes he could fuck you—especially after you told him you have a boyfriend. It takes a special kind of asshole to do shit like that.”

“You could get arrested if you touch him, couldn’t you?” Frank asks. “Besides, you said yourself not to draw any attention to ourselves.”

Gerard sighs frustratedly. “Goddammit,” he says, knowing that Frank is right. “Just wait for me in the fuckin’ lobby. I’ll be down there soon.”

Gerard doesn’t wait for a response before he shoves his phone back into his pocket and returns to the poker table feeling angry and insanely jealous. He plays out the remainder of the hand and then leaves the table after collecting his winnings of a few hundred dollars. When he finally gets downstairs to the lobby, Gerard is stunned when he sees Frank standing by the coat-check dressed in the shortest denim shorts he’s ever seen on a guy and a white crop-top which puts his lower back and lower abdomen tattoos on display. Gerard thinks Frank looks hot as fuck and he instantly feels even more jealous when he realizes that Frank had danced on stage basically half-naked and that the bartender who’d hit on him had probably been checking out his body the entire time.

Frank smiles widely when he sees Gerard and Gerard can’t help but smile, too, when Frank comes up to him and hugs him tightly with his arms draped over his shoulders and his fingers tangling in his hair, because he realizes how much he’d missed him after only just a few hours of being away from him. 

Gerard wraps his right arm around Frank’s bare waist and holds him close. “Where’d you get these clothes from? You look so damn sexy, baby...goddamn...” he says into Frank’s ear just before pulling away.

Frank smiles and palms Gerard’s firm chest over his T-shirt, loving the feeling of the fabric against his skin. “The stage manager person gave them to me to wear,” Frank says. “I won first place,” he adds proudly.

Gerard smiles and notices that Frank’s eyes look wider than usual and that his pupils are dilated like full moons. “Well, I can see why...” he says with a chuckle, looking Frank up and down with hungry eyes. He realizes that Frank definitely hadn’t been lying when he said that he’d want to fuck him on sight when he saw him in this outfit.

“Are you pissed at me?” Frank asks worriedly.

“What? No, baby,” Gerard says. “I am concerned about you though. And frustrated with you.”

“Why?”

Gerard gives Frank a look. “You really need to ask?” he says. “That right there kinda pisses me off, honestly...”

Frank shrugs. “Well, so what if I got high and danced half-naked on a stage? You’re _supposed_ to fuckin’ party in Vegas, Gerard.”

“This isn’t a fucking vacation though, Frank. You do realize that, right?” Gerard snaps. “You need to grow the fuck up and start being more cautious. There are some fucking bad people looking for us and for you to go and parade yourself up on stage like that tonight was insanely irresponsible. You never know who could have been in that crowd,” he says firmly.

Frank pouts, though he knows Gerard is right. “I’m sorry,” he says.

“I’m not looking for a fucking apology, just don’t do any shit like that ever again.”

“Okay,” says Frank meekly.

Gerard sighs and shakes his head. “God, I still wanna deck that bartender in the fucking jaw for what he said to you... Even for just _looking_ at you,” he says, clenching his fists.

“Babe...you can’t. Someone would call the cops for sure if you hit him.”

“I know I can’t,” Gerard says irritably. “I _am_ gonna go give him an earful though. What does he look like?” he asks, looking into the dancehall towards the bar. 

Frank’s eyes widen when he realizes that Gerard is serious. “Wait...you’re actually gonna go find him? What’re you gonna say to him?” he asks worriedly, not wanting Gerard to start a fight or anything.

“That doesn’t concern you. Just wait here—and try fucking listening to me this time.”

Frank sighs, knowing that Gerard isn’t gonna let this go. “Okay...he’s tall, blond, he’s wearing a black tank top and he’s got tattoos on his arms...”

Upon hearing Frank’s description, Gerard immediately makes his way into the dancehall to the bar where he stands in line while his eyes scan behind the counter, looking for a guy who matches the description Frank had given him. When Gerard’s eyes finally settle on the tall, blond guy in the black tank top, his eyes immediately narrow when he and the guy meet each other’s gaze.

Gerard fucking knows this guy. All too well. He’d recognize Bert’s smug fucking smirk anywhere—after all, it’s one of the things he used to love about him back when they were dating. Gerard suddenly feels even angrier when he realizes that his ex-boyfriend is the piece of shit who’d hit on Frank earlier. Suddenly it all makes sense; he can’t think of anyone else who’d act like such a fucking slimeball.

“Here we fuckin’ go...” Gerard says to himself, his heart racing with adrenaline as old feelings of anger and betrayal come rushing to the forefront of his mind as his eyes practically burn a hole through Bert’s skull with his intense glare.

Gerard is soon next up in line and he just stands there for a moment, glaring at Bert, suddenly unsure of what to say to him.

“Shoulda just walked away when you saw me,” Bert says, draping a white towel over one of his shoulders. “Not even gonna ask why you didn’t.”

“What I should be doing is slitting your goddamn throat,” Gerard says all too calmly considering the fact that he’s almost vibrating with rage.

“Whoa,” Bert says, smirking a bit as he arrogantly flips a glass up in the air and catches it. “You’re even more aggressive than I remember—didn’t think that was possible. So, you want a drink, or what? I got a line going.”

“They can fuckin’ wait,” Gerard says irritatedly. “I wanted you to know that the kid you were hitting on earlier is with me.”

Bert raises an eyebrow at hearing Gerard’s words. “Oh, that fuckin’ beautiful twink who was up on stage? How the hell was I supposed to know that?” he asks. 

“He mentioned to you that he has a boyfriend and you still went and told him you wish you could fuck him. You were fucking rude and you made him uncomfortable.”

Bert just shrugs. “I thought we had a nice conversation,” he says. “Besides, can you really blame me for saying that? His outfit was sexy as hell...and that _ass_...damn,” he says with another smug smirk.

Gerard bites his lip, trying hard to restrain himself and keep this conversation civil. “I’d fuckin’ lay you out if we weren’t in a place like this, you absolute piece of shit,” he says through clenched teeth.

“Big talk for someone who’s got a fucked up shoulder,” Bert says. Gerard’s brow furrows as he wonders how the fuck Bert knows about his gunshot wound. “You’re bleeding through your shirt, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Bert says, seeing the puzzled look on Gerard’s face.

Gerard looks down at his left shoulder and sees a small circle of blood soaking through his T-shirt. “Shit...” he says to himself.

“Anyway, I know what you’ve been up to,” Bert says. “I heard about Mason...”

Gerard feels his blood run cold at the mention of Mason’s name and he swallows hard, trying to keep a neutral facial expression. “You don’t know shit,” he says bitingly. 

Bert chuckles darkly. “Actually yeah, I do. You know I run with that crowd, G. It’d only take one phone call to have you dead before the sun comes up,” he says coldly. “I’d save Frankie, of course—that kid seems like lots of fun,” Bert says with a smirk.

“I don’t know what the fuck you’ve heard or from who, but I have no idea what you’re even talking about. And leave my boyfriend out of this.”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, Gerard—I don’t have time for games. If you wanna talk business, then come to that party tomorrow night. I told Frankie all about it; he’ll give you the address when I text it to him.”

“When you _text_ it to him?”

“Yeah. He gave me his number,” Bert says casually. “Well, I asked him for it, actually,” he rephrases. 

Gerard feels another surge of anger course through his veins upon hearing that Frank had given Bert his number, wondering what the fuck he’d done that for and why he hadn’t mentioned it to him. 

“Anyway, I think we could probably come to some sort of agreement so that you two can stay on the run, don’t you?” Bert says. “It’d be such a shame if Mason’s guys were to find you so soon...” He gives Gerard one last smug smirk before waving the next person up to the counter and beginning to mix the drink they order.

Gerard is completely stunned as he walks back out into the lobby, and he’s still in somewhat of a daze as Frank takes his hand and leads him out of the club. Frank feels so glad to finally inhale some fresh air after feeling overheated in the warm club for the last little while. As they walk down the strip he’s mesmerized by all of the lights and buildings around them—he’s never seen anything like this before. He looks over at Gerard and notices that he looks like there’s something bothering him.

“How’d it go with that guy? What happened?”

Gerard looks over at Frank and just shakes his head, feeling overwhelmed by his encounter with Bert. “Don’t worry about it,” he says.

Frank begins to feel anxious because Gerard is wearing the same expression on his face that he’d worn when Trevor had told him Mason was at the hotel in Bellingham. “Can you please not treat me like a fucking child? I can tell that somethings not right, Gerard.”

“I’m too fucking wound-up to talk about it right now. I’m gonna end up snapping at you and making you cry and I’m not in the mood for that shit.”

“Fine,” Frank says moodily, shaking his head. He lets go of Gerard’s hand and walks ahead of him. 

“I’m just being honest,” Gerard calls after him, throwing his hands up. “Great, and now you’re pissed at me for that...” he says to himself with a frustrated sigh.

Gerard follows Frank to where he’d parked the truck earlier and they both get into it in silence before Gerard starts the engine and drives them back to the hotel using his one good arm to steer since Frank isn’t sober enough to drive right now. When they finally get up to their hotel room they still haven’t said a word to each other and as Frank undresses and gets underneath the bedsheets, facing away from him, Gerard realizes that he’s probably feeling irritable now as he comes down from his high.

“So, you’re just gonna go to sleep?” Gerard asks, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“That depends: are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” Frank returns.

“Yeah, we can talk,” Gerard says. “Can you please sit up so I don’t feel like I’m speaking to a fucking wall?”

Frank rolls onto his back and then sits up, leaning back against the headboard with his legs still covered by the white bedsheets. He’s pouting and his eyes look tired and Gerard can tell he’s irritable as fuck right now. 

“How are you feeling?” Gerard asks gently.

Frank shrugs. “Shitty,” he says. “This comedown is rough...almost not worth it.”

Gerard nods. “So, anyway...that bartender guy mentioned that he asked for your number and you gave it to him.”

“Oh, fuck...I totally forgot about that,” Frank says, putting his hands on his face. “He invited me to this party tomorrow night—he literally put his phone in my hands and told me to put my number in so he could send me the address. I know I shouldn’t have given it to him, but I did. I wasn’t trying to like hook up with him or anything like that, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that at all—I know you wouldn’t do that,” says Gerard. “It was incredibly bad judgement on your part though and I’m definitely not okay with it.”

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” Frank says.

“Okay,” Gerard says, nodding. He sighs, deep in thought as he debates internally about whether or not to reveal to Frank who that bartender was and what he’d learned regarding his connection to Mason’s crew. Gerard knows that Frank is still feeling extremely traumatized by the violent showdown that had happened with Mason just days ago and he doesn’t have the heart to bombard him with something else to worry about right now. 

“Is there anything else?” Frank asks, sensing that there’s something more on Gerard’s mind.

”No,” Gerard lies, shaking his head.

A moment later, Frank’s phone vibrates twice where it sits on top of the bedside table, distracting him from the nagging feeling he has that there’s something Gerard isn’t telling him. He picks up the phone and sees that he has a new text message from an unfamiliar phone number with the area code 725. 

**725-555-5555** : _2002-8200 Las Vegas Blvd S. 8pm._

Frank shows Gerard the screen. “I guess that’s the address of that party,” he says before putting the phone back down.

Gerard nods and pauses for a moment before speaking. “Wanna go?” he asks, faking the idea that they even have a choice...


End file.
